SD-WAN: Is It Right For Your Organization?

By R. Leigh Hennig | Principal Network Architect

There’s one common question every CIO today faces: what is all the hype around SD-WAN, and does my organization need it?

Google ‘what is SD-WAN’ and you’ll notice the majority of results are just articles of people telling you what they think SD-WAN is. The reason? SD-WAN is a nebulous term, and it means something different to everyone. The better approach to learning what SD-WAN means is to understand that it doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s not a technology, but rather a term: SD-WAN is an attempt to solve a problem. 

When an organization is interested in SD-WAN, what they’re really saying is, “We have a problem that we don’t fully know how to solve.” So, what’s the problem? Companies want to maximize performance while reducing cost, but don’t know how to do it.  

 

In the most broad terms, SD-WAN utilizes a control plane to make
intelligent decisions on how to make the best use of the data plane.