Often the remote sites are “neglected” compared to the main Data Center and yet they are very often numerous and have a preponderant part in the activity of companies. They are the “production” part: Airports, agency, stores, laboratories, factories , warehouses, hotels, etc. They need to access applications and data hosted centrally and / or in public clouds, this therefore requires having a reliable, resilient, efficient communication network as well as simple administration and centralized.

The Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) allows on top of an existing physical network, to create a virtual WAN network like a real Software Defined Network (SDN). The VeloCloud solution (acquired by VMware in 2017) combines the capacities of several network links of different technologies (Internet, ADSL, MPLS, etc.) to use them as a single link and thus gain in performance and resilience. They are “monitored” in real time and continuously (Bandwidth, Latency, Jitter, lost packets, etc.) thus allowing an application to benefit at any time from the best link (s) depending on its criticality.

Remote sites can benefit from new services that they were not previously entitled to such as videos for conferences, training, end of year greetings or any other corporate message.

It is possible to prioritize certain flows over others in order to guarantee a quality of service. it is even possible to specify which applications have the right to use several network links and which ones have the right to use only one. Everything is done by applying a service level policy defined centrally.

Regarding applications in SaaS mode or hosted in Public Clouds, remote sites can access them directly without having to go through a central site. This is done using gateways hosted directly in the data centers where these applications are installed, as shown in the example below where it is possible to download the gateways for AWS and Azure via their marketplace.

Regarding deployments, they are of the Zero Touch type, whether we opt for physical or virtual boxes, the configuration is done by automatic application of profiles. It is no longer necessary to send specialized skills to each site, deployments are thus much faster and much less expensive.

For more information about: velocloud sd-wan