Is SD-WAN for Small Businesses a Good Approach?
It doesn’t matter if it’s a small company. If your business has several locations, remote employees and is constantly relying on cloud services, it may be time for you to switch to SD-WAN for small businesses.
Recent research suggests the market for SD-WAN will be worth almost $8.4 billion by 2025. This advanced technology is becoming the preferred option for companies of all sizes that are experiencing difficulty with traditional WANs.
But what is SD-WAN? In short it’s a virtual, software-based WAN architecture that allows companies to leverage the Internet as a means of connecting users to application resources. Users can access via LTE, broadband Internet or MPLS.
Through SD-WAN, the wide-area network traffic changes quickly, reliably and securely through a centralized controller. Users benefit from higher performance and a better overall experience. If you use an SD-WAN solution for your small business you may experience greater productivity and lower IT costs.
As mentioned above, traditional WANs are often insufficient for modern enterprises, especially as they try to get into the cloud-based applications industry and break into the digital space. Therefore, the number of companies adopting SD-WAN for small businesses continues to grow because of the many benefits it provides. Keep reading to learn more about the advantages it can bring for you.
Related: Top 3 SD-WAN Architecture Types
Advantages of Implementing SD-WAN for Small Businesses
Installing an SD-WAN for small businesses is one of the best things you can do for your company, primarily if it highly depends on the cloud and transfers large amounts of information. Your IT staff will appreciate its unique features that enhance security and performance. Moreover, deploying SD-WAN solutions entails a minimal time commitment and more affordable costs than you may think.
Let’s review the main benefits in more detail.
Budget-Friendly
SD-WAN for small businesses can be a more cost-efficient and affordable network option. Your business can save money by taking advantage of this technology, resulting in greater profits in the long run. In fact, a recent IDC survey found that almost 95% of respondents were planning to implement SD-WAN within the next 24 months. SD-WAN’s growth, illustrated by this statistic, might be one reason why business leaders and IT managers prioritize it so highly.
You can save money by routing your network traffic to the most affordable and best-performing path. A greater level of security will also lead to less money spent on addressing any issues or attacks. Is this something we want to infer that there could be job loss?)
Enhanced Security and Performance
When selecting a network, there are two factors you must consider: how well it will run and how secure the data you send over it will be. An SD-WAN for small businesses today offers the best reliability and security available, guaranteeing those factors are covered.
Your business will always be protected from attacks with these solutions’ end-to-end encryption. Application performance will also boost. Besides intelligent routing and path selection, many other essential processes will ensure a fast and seamless Internet connection.
You will also eliminate configuration errors with SD-WAN. Improved performance alone is a massive advantage for any business and your small company will not be an exception.
Smart Traffic Routing
An essential benefit of SD-WAN for small businesses is its potential to manage how and where data travels. By prioritizing specific traffic and signals it does not use the same connection for every process. It accomplishes this via two methods: path selection and intelligent routing.
With SD-WAN for small businesses solutions, you will have these features as standard; meaning your traffic always goes to the best possible channel. This results in fewer connections lost, faster transmission and reduced bandwidth usage.
More Efficient Staffing and Increased Employee Satisfaction
In an effort to increase profits, many companies are concerned with reducing staff costs. By using a managed SD-WAN solution, it is possible to achieve this without compromising quality.
The services automate, simplify and perform important network tasks, among them traffic routing and cyberattack prevention.
You can benefit significantly from SD-WAN for small businesses if your company already has a working IT network. The network will be less burdensome to manage and control with your provider’s help. Adding a new connection or component to the network will not require the services of a professional contractor. Your provider may take care of this task for you. Consequently, you will have to pay less to maintain the network.
Moreover, small businesses will benefit from SD-WAN solutions to improve employee and customer satisfaction. If a system is performing well, the team is less likely to become frustrated. The increase in the morale of your employees will enable you to retain them and allow them to work more efficiently.
More Scalable SD-WAN Options
The best SD-WAN options are flexible to suit every business need. They also offer scalability, which guarantees service continuity as the company grows. An optimal SD-WAN for small businesses makes both of these advantages available.
With SD-WAN for small businesses you get to choose any connectivity method you want, including MPLS and 4G. You won’t need to figure out a new connection or give up one you’ve used for a while. It’s just a matter of adapting your SD-WAN to what you already have.
You can also choose from several different types of SD-WAN gear. Depending on your needs you might choose an on-premises, controller-based, or gateway-based solution. They all offer cost reductions, improved performance and enhanced security.
Where to Get the Best SD-WAN for Small Businesses
As SD-WAN becomes more popular, the number of companies providing fully-managed SD-WAN services increases almost as fast as businesses seeking them out. Hopefully, you learned in this guide there are several benefits that come with adopting an SD-WAN solution and they may provide you with hints on how to find the best provider.
Even if you haven’t made up your mind yet whether this is the best approach for your small business, we are here to help you make the right choice. Our team of experts at BCM One will work with you to determine the ideal SD-WAN solution for your organization. Our partnerships with a wide range of SD-WAN providers of each type will enable us to help you find the appropriate one to suit your needs.
To successfully implement an SD-WAN solution, you need a provider with strong security credentials and a team of expert security analysts. Increasingly, organizations are drifting toward a digital realm, which is why a scalable network plays an essential role. If you want the best-managed services for SD-WAN, you can partner with an experienced firm like BCM One.
Our team can assess your existing infrastructure and requirements to design a tailored service just for you. We offer expert assistance and implement a wide range of technology solutions. With BCM One, you will be able to benefit from simplified and optimized communications networks. Contact us now.