SD-WAN offers a more flexible and cost-efficient alternative. It uses multiple transport types—including broadband, LTE, 5G, or MPLS—and automatically routes traffic based on performance, security, or business priority. This ensures that critical applications like voice or video get the best available path while less sensitive traffic uses more economical links.
Businesses should consider switching when they need greater agility, cloud optimization, and cost savings. For organizations with distributed locations, SD-WAN simplifies management, improves application performance, and strengthens security with integrated encryption and policy enforcement.
Dan Ryan
Principal Solution Architect
Dan Ryan is a Principal Field Solution Architect specializing in wireless networking at Connection and a Certified Wireless Network Expert (CWNE #351). With nearly two decades in enterprise networking, he helps organizations design and operate reliable, scalable wireless networks that advance business goals. Dan is passionate about education, frequently speaks at industry events, and is known for making complex wireless concepts clear and practical.Read Full Transcript
The difference between SD-WAN, and traditional WAN represents a fundamental shift from hardware-centric to software-defined networking with implications that extend far beyond technical architecture. SD-WAN abstracts network connectivity from underlying transport, which enables organizations to use any combination of broadband, or LTE as well as the legacy dedicated circuits while maintaining application performance, and security. The key advantage here is intelligent path selection with the system automatically routing traffic based on real-time conditions as well as application requirements, and obviously the organization's business policies.
Cost benefits are also immediately apparent. Organizations typically reduce WAN costs drastically by leveraging these lower cost internet connections instead of the dedicated connections like MPLS while also maintaining, or even improving performance. But the strategic advantages matter more. SD-WAN enables direct cloud connectivity, which reduces latency, and increases performance for all of our SaaS applications these days.
Centralized policy management for SD-WAN also means security, and routing policies can deploy consistently across all of your locations automatically, and bandwidth can also be increased instantly without hardware changes.
Organizations should consider switching if they're having some of these indicators, right? Obviously the first one here is those high MPLS costs, or poor performance for cloud applications, maybe lengthy deployment times for these new locations, or just straight up difficulty managing network policies across all of your multiple sites.
That's not to say though that everyone should go to SD-WAN. Traditional WAN still makes sense for organizations that might have predictable traffic patterns, or maybe they just have limited cloud usage, or regulatory requirements that require those dedicated connections.
Further it's important to note that the decision isn't always either or. Many organizations have implemented hybrid approaches that combine SD-WAN flexibility with MPLS reliability for those critical applications.
The key, as always, is matching your network strategy to your business strategy not just your technical requirements.
The difference between SD-WAN, and traditional WAN represents a fundamental shift from hardware-centric to software-defined networking with implications that extend far beyond technical architecture. SD-WAN abstracts network connectivity from underlying transport, which enables organizations to use any combination of broadband, or LTE as well as the legacy dedicated circuits while maintaining application performance, and security. The key advantage here is intelligent path selection with the system automatically routing traffic based on real-time conditions as well as application requirements, and obviously the organization's business policies.
Cost benefits are also immediately apparent. Organizations typically reduce WAN costs drastically by leveraging these lower cost internet connections instead of the dedicated connections like MPLS while also maintaining, or even improving performance. But the strategic advantages matter more. SD-WAN enables direct cloud connectivity, which reduces latency, and increases performance for all of our SaaS applications these days.
Centralized policy management for SD-WAN also means security, and routing policies can deploy consistently across all of your locations automatically, and bandwidth can also be increased instantly without hardware changes.
Organizations should consider switching if they're having some of these indicators, right? Obviously the first one here is those high MPLS costs, or poor performance for cloud applications, maybe lengthy deployment times for these new locations, or just straight up difficulty managing network policies across all of your multiple sites.
That's not to say though that everyone should go to SD-WAN. Traditional WAN still makes sense for organizations that might have predictable traffic patterns, or maybe they just have limited cloud usage, or regulatory requirements that require those dedicated connections.
Further it's important to note that the decision isn't always either or. Many organizations have implemented hybrid approaches that combine SD-WAN flexibility with MPLS reliability for those critical applications.
The key, as always, is matching your network strategy to your business strategy not just your technical requirements.
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