It seems everything is fast becoming “Software Defined” in the Information Technology industry. It has become one of the most common marketing terms used to lure technology decision makers. The technology used to inter-connect organisational branch/campus offices together, what we traditionally have called the WAN (Wide Area Network) has long succumbed to the same technology term. So, what is a WAN, what is Software Defined, how has Software Defined changed the WAN and why should you care? Finally, how can Synnepho help.
The WAN is used to provide connectivity between multiple business offices. Each business office would typically have a wired and/or wireless LAN to provide access to its local staff or visitors, contractors, etc. The business more than likely also has a centralised facility such as a datacentre or computer room, that is used to host centralised services such as, applications, computer, storage, secure access to the Internet and other essential business services. A WAN is used to interconnect all the business offices to each other and provide access to the central services and secure access to the Internet.
This WAN “connectivity” is traditionally delivered over private links using technologies such MPLS, Point to Point links or variations thereof and terminated on routers at each site.
This solution was and still can be great when your applications and data sits in a business owned or a hosted/managed datacentre. However, as adoption of cloud-based services has accelerated and the explosion of Software Defined Networking (SDN) took hold, the traditional router based WAN solution no longer makes business sense.
Over the years traditional technologies have gradually matured to a point of becoming commoditised to a certain degree. One could argue that networking hardware has reached that point. Instead of networking vendors focusing on the hardware as a main solution selling point, they are now focusing on the overarching software used to manage and control the underlying hardware. In this sense, Software Defined means abstracting the complexities and nuances of the underlying hardware and the command sets required to deploy, operate and provide ongoing management. For example, a traditional network meant that changes were applied to each and every individual device on the network. One at a time. Usually via a complex CLI based syntax. Sure, the tech savvy engineer would/could take some solace in some clever Python scripting but that was often adhoc and came with risks. Today the overarching software controller(s) manage the entire network using web-based software and holistically maintains visibility for all controlled assets.
The controller or centralised view of the network presents some significant opportunities and this is why, you should care.
The software can gather analytics from each device using streaming telemetry to gather insights never before possible. Configuration of the network has changed, such that, changes can be delegated to different functional areas of the business. This change essentially removes the bottleneck of requiring a highly skilled technical staff member to make a network device change.
The software can extrapolate numerous link performance characteristics in real-time. The profound impact of this capability has been that these link measurements can be used by the software to make intelligent traffic steering decisions based on policies set by the business. As a result, it has been possible for some time now to move away from expensive low bandwidth private links such as MPLS and Point to Point links, to Internet links of varying characteristics. This ultimately reduces the overall telecommunications costs for a business for the term of the carriage contract and beyond.
The Software Defined approach has changed how networking devices are managed and configured. This centralised view of the network has provided the opportunity for software to consume these rich data sources and with the advent of AI/ML can provide Insights that, for example, intelligent traffic steering, direct Internet branch breakout, dramatically reduce the time for fault resolution, provide compliance feedback, provide security event and default actions taken to remediate or recommendations and many more.
Synnepho can help your business in several ways:
1. Our staff have decades of experience with networking technology with the highest certifications acquired over many years. You gain access to experienced, qualified specialists with a strong record of providing high-quality IT solutions.
2. We listen carefully to your business requirements, challenges and business objects.
3. We work with you to provide a suitable solution that is fit for purpose.
4. We can then design, implement and provide carriage options for the solution.
5. After implementation we can operate, monitor and manage the solution if you choose to.
6. We can also provide regular annual (or as required) reviews as a health check and provide updates with emerging technologies.
Read about our SD-WAN service here or Contact us for more information.