Enterprise networks are not just expensive; they’re risky and complex – and they aren’t getting easier…
The WAN (Wide Area Network) isn’t just a critical important part of the enterprise network and information infrastructure, but also a key enabler of the innovation and convergence infrastructure. With coverage ranging from tens to thousands of kilometres, WAN connects users, intelligent products, cloud platforms, branches, enterprise factories, and more.
At the same time, it enables efficient collaboration between different industries and quick implementation of innovative apps and services. After all, the key to enterprise digital transformation is data value mining, and efficient data circulation via WAN is not just a pre-requisite, but rather a foundation. In this scenario, traditional WAN connections are not just expensive but also complicated to manage. Cloud WANs, which are cloud-based WAN solutions, encompass many storage and cloud computing services within a single network architecture and serve as the perfect solution.
What Is Cloud WAN and SD-WAN?
Cloud WAN is essentially a distributed computing architecture comprising cloud applications, software, assets, and more across multiple cloud environments.
It basically delivers networking and application services in an as-a-service, consumption-based model. There are many advantages of employing Cloud WAN, starting with the fact that it allows organisations to focus on user experience and cloud application performance, rather than having to manage connectivity between cloud(s) and on-premise sites. Moreover, it allows visibility into the cloud, on-premises, and the entire network, offers flexible and easy global presence, accommodates fluctuating capacity and workforce requirements, and alleviates network maintenance needs.
Cloud WANs depend on and commonly employ SD-WAN (software-defined WAN) tech, which overlays the physical WAN infrastructure with an intelligent software layer. Basically, managing the entire network is simpler, as the focus of cloud networking shifts from devices like firewalls, gateways, routers, and switches to cloud-based SDN (software-defined networking).
Eventually, over time, enterprises need to deploy fewer devices at remote and local sites, with an increasing number of network functions being delivered by the cloud. Consequently, network management is done using a single pane of glass to manage a virtual infrastructure, rather than interfacing with a bunch of separate physical devices.
The advantages are clearly visible. Not only are cloud SD-WAN services better equipped to manage network expansion and deliver new services, but they’re also dynamically controlled by service level agreements (SLAs) and policies, unlike traditional WANs.
When these policies and SLAs are created or updated, they’re delivered to the SD-WAN infrastructure and traffic is monitored across the entire network to ensure that user service and application levels are being met. This structure allows enterprises to connect diverse locations with improved scalability and agility.
Why Is Cloud WAN Important
Traditionally, enterprises used to rely heavily on MPLS (multiprotocol label switching) networks for reliable and secure site-to-site connectivity — which was also an expensive approach. Moreover, enterprise connectivity was becoming inherently difficult and complex to manage, and the rapid emergence of AI (artificial intelligence) put additional pressure on enterprise networks.
After all, AI-based applications require a highly distributed infrastructure that’s often spread across different on-premises data centres and clouds, requiring a global network with massive scalability, and which is also private, secure, efficient, and cost-effective.
All this, along with the rapid adoption of cloud applications and SaaS, made the transformation to SD-WAN with DIA (direct internet access) inevitable, especially since it was a lower-cost alternative that leveraged the internet. Cloud WAN is the unified enterprise network solution for reliably and securely connecting across any enterprise user, application, and site, while helping to ensure reduced costs and optimal performance.
It essentially enables two key use cases: connecting campus and branch environments over the network and providing high-performance connectivity between geographically dispersed data centres.
Cloud WAN and SD-WAN – Just Starting Out
Major internet outages were reported from South Africa to Côte d’Ivoire in March 2024, when a suspected subsea avalanche damaged four undersea cables along the West African coast. Even as the continent scrambled to reconnect to the internet, it was Google who came to the rescue with a 9,000+ mile lifeline, a.k.a. the Equiano subsea cable. It connected South Africa to Portugal with landing points in Nigeria, Togo, and more destinations along the way.
The Cloud WAN-supporting cable stayed live during this disruption, with businesses employing Equiano staying live and the rest turning to Google to get back online.
It just goes to show how far the enterprise and global network has come. Today, nearly 70% enterprise applications run with a SaaS provider or on the cloud. The SD-WAN market was a staggering USD 3.8 billion back in 2023 itself, and has a compounded annual growth rate of a whopping 32.4% until 2030. Unsurprisingly, Cloud WAN stands to revolutionise how enterprises and organisations secure and connect their global network and infrastructure.
Offering high performance, simplicity, and a wealth of security and connectivity service choices, as well as substantial cost savings, Cloud WAN is the way ahead for growth and innovation in the cloud and beyond.
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