What you need to know about SD-WAN performance

Cloud migrations? Multi-cloud support? Interoperability? End user experience assurance? What you could be missing in your prep towards making the transition to SD-WAN

SD-WAN continues its popularity as the wide-area network (WAN) architecture of choice for the distributed enterprise. The value of multi-source connectively using MPLS, Ethernet, Internet, and 5G in the branch are table stakes for today’s SD-WAN offerings. At the same time, many SD-WAN vendors offer even more flexibility to their solution.

For example, SD-WAN vendors support the ability to host virtualized services, provided by the SD-WAN vendors themselves, or they can support the integration with 3rd party microservices that offer next-gen firewall (NGFW), virtual private networks (VPN), and WAN-optimization, to name a few.

As enterprises embark on cloud migration in growing numbers, the performance of the enterprise network becomes critical for success. As the complexity of extending on-premises services to private, public, and hybrid cloud resources, as well as cloud, to cloud workloads, the user experience, network, and application performance and security is the forefront requirement for many enterprise networks.

A whopping 94% of enterprises are using cloud computing in some fashion, according to research from Flexera. Companies are running a majority of their workloads in the cloud, and 84% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy. Cloud migration is an attractive prospect for businesses of all sizes, thanks to a host of benefits like scalability, flexibility, and cost savings.

The shift to the cloud necessitates change for enterprise networks and specifically wide area networks (WANs). A WAN is typically spread across multiple locations over a large geographical area.

Software-Defined WANs (SD-WANs) offer a host of benefits to enterprises. SD-WANs simplify network operation and management by using intelligent software to control the network and prioritize workloads. Due to their flexible nature, they may be built using low-cost bandwidth and commercially off-the-shelf appliances, making them preferable to traditional WAN appliances.

The legacy WAN typically relies on proprietary hardware that is rigid and inflexible when it comes to operationalizing network services that lock in the WAN network to private connections, rendering it both inefficient and expensive to operate. And to top it off, performance management is confined to individual devices and connections, which makes overall network monitoring and management a complex, costly headache.

It goes without saying that companies undergoing a cloud migration need to ensure their networks are scalable and maintain a consistent and reliably strong performance. Architecting an SD-WAN is an important step, but deploying a comprehensive network and application performance management (NAPM) solution is an ideal way to ensure success.

Application performance can make or break a cloud migration. Enterprise customers want assurance that a migration will happen with the least amount of disruption to their end users and networks. That means the performance of each application and workload moved to the cloud must be carefully monitored during and after migration, and a high-performing NAPM solution will handle that task seamlessly.

SD-WAN Performance Optimization

It should come as no surprise that not all NAPM solutions are created equal and understanding some of their differences is the key to choosing the best partner – and ensuring a strong SD-WAN performance.

Here’s what you need to know and prepare for before making the transition:

1. Data capture and retention

The amount and quality of data being captured and retained is critical to attaining network optimization. An effective solution will include granular, precise high data capture rate, and stores that data in a scalable manner to ensure every packet is analyzed.

But capturing data is not enough, and that data must be retained long enough to pinpoint historic performance trends and issues. This needs to be accomplished using efficient, minimal storage. A good NAPM solution will be capable of scaling across the entire network and providing precise, granular levels of data analysis to enable the best SD-WAN performance possible.

2. Unified and holistic network overview

Some NAPM offerings limit the amount of data availability and visibility, which can hinder quick resolution of performance issues. Others may employ a time-consuming, two-step approach to application management involving packet collection followed by analysis.

A holistic solution that provides analyzed data and quickly produces actionable insights that have meaningful impact to customers’ business and their end customers’ quality of experience across all layers of the application stack is the key to achieving peak SD-WAN performance. Resources may be adjusted in real time across a distributed IT environment, ensuring peak network performance at all times. And administrators will have a unified view of the entire network, ideally through a unified interface.

3. Interoperability and multi-cloud support

Enterprises have specific needs and very different network architectures, that make interoperability one of the most important factors for any business considering a cloud migration. Finding a NAPM solution that works over a broad range of infrastructure is pretty much essential to successful performance management.

A comprehensive offering will work across SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, virtualized, hybrid and private architectures, enabling enterprises to choose the infrastructure that works best for their specific needs and business model. The beauty of SD-WAN is that it doesn’t require a cookie-cutter approach to networking and infrastructure, and an enterprise NAPM solution shouldn’t either.

4. Automation and broad application support

One of the hallmarks of a good NAPM solution is automation and ease of use. SD-WAN features built-in intelligence by design, and a good management solution will offer the same. Automating and executing traffic analytics in real-time is critical for pinpointing network problem areas and relieving congestion.

A comprehensive solution will also be able to support a broad range of application and service protocols from common network services to niche transactions like real-time applications such as any-cast traffic such as VoIP and video conferencing.

5. Ease of use

At the end of the day, most enterprises are looking for an intuitive NAPM solution that doesn’t require a lot of tweaking and configuration while allowing flexibility for network application monitoring. An offering that may be easily installed and integrated with greenfield and brownfield network architectures is an ideal choice.

Of course, a solution that includes an intuitive user interface and is simple to learn, deploy and maintain will make life easier for NetOps, and DevOps. That ease of use will translate into vigilant, proactive performance monitoring, ensuring the network is always operating at peak efficiency.

Choosing the right NAPM partner to meet the specific needs of your enterprise infrastructure is the only way to ensure a high-performing SD-WAN. Failure to do so could spell network disaster, downtime and disruption, issues no company wants to deal with. But choosing the right solution will yield cost savings, improved business productivity and end-user satisfaction, an appealing proposition for any enterprise.

Now that we’ve talked about the steps you need to take to prepare the transition to SD-WAN, in our upcoming series, we will be sharing how to optimize performance for three major IaaS platforms: AWS, Google, and Microsoft Azure. Check out the first in the series, “Optimizing app migration to the AWS cloud without compromising network performance”.