Why SD-WAN and why now?

It is no secret to anyone that we are going through a series of important transformations that complicate the terrain for IT professionals. Certain conditions are being met that are leading them to think about the need to use more innovative ways of delivering their services. The “perfect storm” is being generated by 3 facts in particular:

1. The transition to the cloud takes more force. The cloud has been an important element of enterprise IT infrastructures for a long time, but its use has increased enormously with the pandemic, which has changed the way we work, study, shop, socialize and more. Today, we are not only talking about applications in the cloud, but also about multiple workloads migrating to it at all times.

2. IoT devices multiply. Without a doubt, Internet of Things (IoT.) devices have proven their usefulness, and are growing like wildfire in variety and quantity, collecting valuable information for businesses. The point is that at the edge of the network it is not possible to analyze or exploit this data; you have to move them to the data center or some cloud to get the most out of them.

3. IT infrastructure is increasingly diverse and complex. Not only are applications and workloads moving across multiple environments (data centers, different clouds, and delivery models such as SaaS); so does the workforce. From the need to telecommute, employees are no longer static in an office, but connect to their corporate networks from anywhere. Security has become an extremely critical element: before you had to take care of the data center, the cloud and the perimeter; now we need to bring security to every place where applications, workloads and users are.

The landscape is complex. In the SaaS arena alone, the number of applications in use per company is increasing 30% each year, according to Blissfully. Large corporations use, on average, 288 different SaaS applications. And spending around optimizing the experience of these apps is growing at even faster rates: organizations are adding more users, improving features, adding new service plans, and so on all the time.

It is in this scenario that software-defined wide area networks (SD-WANs) are gaining strength, providing the visibility, control, scalability, performance and security that companies need. SD-WAN is the best option to best solve current complexity, connect users with new workloads in the cloud and achieve the best connectivity between IoT devices and IT platforms, providing a secure environment. .

Not just any SD-WAN proposal

SD-WAN was born to replace traditional routers, highly static and requiring a lot of manual configuration, in order to optimize the migration of packets through the WAN through a more dynamic, balanced activity that takes advantage of all network resources. . Over the years, the proposal for this type of connectivity has evolved and diversified.

In our view, an SD-WAN offering that contains manual processes or is based solely on security, but does not solve the complexity of connectivity, does not add value for companies. For Aruba, SD-WAN should focus on completely transforming the organization’s WAN connectivity.

Our proposal allows organizations to move from a traditional infrastructure, mostly manual, point-to-point and with legacy equipment, to another in which everything is automated, in a way that speeds up and facilitates the connection of multiple branches, to multiple clouds and data. centers, and all the elements talk to each other in an orchestrated and dynamic way, also adding end-to-end security capabilities that are complemented by third-party Cloud Security services.

We know that this is what companies require. A recent IDC survey in Latin America showed that companies that already use SD-WAN stand out as the main advantages of this technology: 1) Ability to add or change bandwidth in real time, 2) Flexibility to use different types of connectivity and 3) Improve security features.

Our offer is robust and advanced so that IT areas can achieve precisely the orchestration and automation they need, as we are witnesses to the savings and efficiency that businesses achieve with a solution like ours, from shorter implementation times to faster problem resolution. agile, which translates into a more efficient operation.

Implementing the correct SD-WAN means, for business areas, agility in connection with applications, greater availability and access to data and applications at all times, a more secure environment, better decision-making and less time required for commissioning. launch of new products or services. And for IT professionals, agility in migration to the cloud, ease of network management, optimal time-to-market, multi-cloud access and greater visibility, control and security. With Aruba, organizations are on the right track.

By Lorena Velarde, Category Manager for Mobility, Security and SD-WAN at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, for Latin America