Business Technology Blog | CrossVergence

What is SD-WAN?

Written by Crossvergence | Jun 6, 2023 4:00:00 AM

The term Wide Area Network, or WAN, has been in common use for decades. These network solutions rely heavily on physical hardware. A more recent evolution of WAN is SD-WAN, or Software-Defined Wide Area Network. This type of solution is less hardware heavy and instead calls on software to help determine traffic.

A WAN acts as routing for data. Physical routers and pre-determined formulas are the key to acheiving this. Because it relies heavily on configured hardware, it is an inflexible and does not serve many needs as adeptly as it could. Conversely, SD-WAN is made for flexibility. The software detects changes in data traffic and can adapt routing to meet fluxuating needs. ROutine can be altered to account for bandwidth and latency.

Overall, SD-WANs can address many common concerns regarding the handling of data. The flexibility, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness make it an excellent solution for organizations that place high priority on adeptly addressing changing needs alonside a rapidly evolving technological landscape.