SD-WAN and 5G: Increase Performance and Optimize Connectivity with Network Slicing
For many enterprises, applications are the customer-facing and productivity-driving part of their businesses, thus poorly performing apps translate directly into poor customer and employee experiences.
In today’s world of work-from-anywhere, distributed networks, application performance, and reliability can become exponentially more difficult to maintain as traffic must traverse complex and geographically dispersed networks. Being able to guarantee superior customer experiences and positive employee interactions with applications requires sophisticated environments that can be tailored to meet the needs of the business and its customers.
One approach to optimizing application performance across distributed networks involves combining SD-WAN technologies with 5G wireless cellular services and applying network slicing capabilities to optimize performance and create more resilient connectivity.
Why SD-WAN and 5G Work
For many, SD-WAN technologies successfully enable enterprises to deliver the same application performance and experiences across distributed geographies.
By using software to connect users, applications, and data across multiple locations, SD-WAN technology provides high-performing applications and reliable network connectivity in a secure environment. Coupling SD-WAN with 5G wireless services elevates this approach by helping businesses create a robust network infrastructure capable of high-speed connectivity and low latency that supports bandwidth-intensive and other apps across geographically distributed offices and other locations. SD-WAN and 5G together provide security through firewalls, encryption, authentication, threat intelligence, policy enforcement, and more.
The two technologies become greater than the sum of their parts when network slicing, is applied. Network slicing involves creating multiple virtual networks on a single physical infrastructure, each optimized for different types of traffic. SD-WAN manages the slices in a 5G environment, and businesses can ensure mission-critical applications receive the bandwidth needed for optimal performance. Each virtual network slice is optimized for its defined purpose by tailoring throughput, latency, speed, reliability, security, and more. Network slicing allows companies to customize their network for specific use cases, such as different business units within a company or across multiple customers for a service provider.
SD-WAN offers secure and efficient traffic management, while 5G provides high-speed connectivity and network slicing lets each application receive the bandwidth it needs for optimal performance. The convergence of these three elements gives companies the opportunity to become more agile and orchestrate traffic priorities as needed to meet customer or business demand.
SD-WAN and 5G Wireless Wins
The benefits of combining SD-WAN with 5G wireless and network slicing capabilities not only include high-performing applications, but the trio of technologies also brings better connectivity, scalability, centralized control, and resource utilization—which can translate into cost savings.
SD-WAN benefits from 5G in many ways. To start, 5G provides point-to-point wireless connectivity alternatives for branch offices, and it supports temporary, ad hoc remote locations with secure WAN connectivity. Also, 5G offers out-of-band management that enables remote access to network resources. Plus, 5G offers easy-to-provision links and is a wireless option that can be easier to purchase, deploy, and manage. But the biggest way 5G complements SD-WAN could be with its network slicing capabilities, which enable many more benefits. These benefits include:
Improved performance
SD-WAN technologies can manage network slices in a 5G environment to give critical applications the bandwidth they need to perform as expected. By using application-aware routing capabilities, SD-WAN identifies the best-suited network slice for an application.
Scalability
Combining SD-WAN and 5G helps businesses scale their networks with better control, reliability, and coverage. 5G bolsters SD-WAN connectivity by offering higher bandwidth, lower latency, and the ability to select the best network route based on real-time conditions.
Better connectivity
The combination of SD-WAN, 5G, and network slicing provides better connectivity by enabling dynamic traffic touring across multiple network options, which can also be optimized for different application demands by network slicing, ensuring specific applications receive the most suitable network performance within the 5G network.
Centralized control
A central point of control across a sophisticated network simplifies WAN management and provides visibility into the entire environment. It also allows administrators to monitor network traffic, implement security policies, and respond to potential threats.
Remote work
SD-WAN and 5G create a strong network infrastructure for remote locations or rural sites. It can also be used to monitor and manage remote sites such as farms, mining operations, or oil fields, for example. The technologies improve performance at these various locations by processing data closer to the source.
Cost savings
By enabling the optimal use of resources, SD-WAN, 5G, and network slicing can also represent cost savings for businesses. With more efficient network management and less expensive connectivity options, the collaboration among SD-WAN, 5G, and its network slicing feature enables businesses to optimize bandwidth through intelligent traffic routing and allocate network resources based on application needs.
Cybersecurity boost
SD-WAN and 5G with network slicing let businesses enable more granular traffic control, isolate critical data streams through dedicated network slices, and provide robust encryption mechanisms. All of these capabilities support better traffic monitoring and enhanced protections for sensitive information traversing networks and connected devices. Network slicing can separate sensitive, critical data from less impactful data, which could also minimize the damage following a security breach.
Intelligent Network Operations
Certain industries today would benefit now from the capabilities provided when SD-WAN, 5G, and network slicing work together.
While many businesses could benefit from the performance-enhancing combination of SD-WAN, 5G, and network slicing, some industries such as healthcare would experience significant gains with more reliable service to life-saving equipment and secure access to clinical applications and patient information. Manufacturing businesses also would reap the rewards of app-prioritization in real time that comes when traffic is routed based on demand and available bandwidth. Mining operations or farming businesses would similarly benefit from the technologies monitoring rural worksites and providing reliable access to applications across cloud environments.
With optimized routing and enhanced connectivity close to remote sites, SD-WAN, 5G, and network slicing can empower organizations with faster time to market for new services at remote and distributed locations. SD-WAN, 5G, and its network slicing capability can significantly reduce time to market for new services by allowing businesses to more quickly tailor network capabilities to specific application needs without the need for infrastructure build-out. The trio allows businesses to rapidly configure and deploy virtual networks on demand to support new services with customized performance levels within a single physical network.
The advanced capabilities of combining SD-WAN, 5G, and network slicing will help businesses place workloads more intelligently, solve network challenges, and reliably deliver applications and services while also improving customer and employee experiences.
Learn more about Hughes Managed SD-WAN Services and Hughes 5G Solutions.