Why East African Businesses Should Switch To SD-WAN

By switching to software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), many enterprises in East Africa and around the world are accelerating their digital transformation. While SD-WAN was initially developed as a flexible inter-branch connectivity solution, it currently accomplishes much more.

No matter where they are located, it improves productivity, efficiency and collaboration for businesses and their employees by combining connectivity and security to create a user experience that is unparalleled. In the age of remote working and our reliance on technology for business processes, newer SD-WAN solutions offer flexible and scalable access to cloud environments and regional data centres.

By using this smart networking technology, companies can build more agile, responsive, reliable and secure networks that can scale up as their operations expand. For both large and small businesses in East Africa, SD-WAN solutions will ensure that your business remains effective in a rapidly evolving digital world.

What benefits can SD-WAN offer your company?

In order to optimise traffic monitoring and routing between business branches and data centres or the cloud, SD-WAN solutions offer centralised control and management of your company network. It improves a company’s agility and user experience, both of which are crucial for employee motivation and satisfaction.

This boosts the overall productivity and effectiveness of the company. If an enterprise opens a new branch, its employees can be given immediate access to the network without the need for additional infrastructure because SD-WAN is relatively simple to set up and the bandwidth can be scaled up quickly.

Through automated monitoring and mitigation techniques, SD-WAN provides the best protection possible for networks against cyberattacks. It can aid in preventing the corporate network from being compromised through malware, spyware, ransomware and other cyber threats. The cyber security of SD-WAN is further enhanced by end-to-end encryption of network data.

Compared to traditional networking models such as those based on MPLS or VPNs, SD-WAN is more affordable to set up and maintain. It can be added on to an existing network rather than replacing it, which minimises setup costs and improves network control overall.

Integration of SD-WAN in hybrid environments

For their networks, most businesses rely on in-house servers, the cloud, or a hybrid of the two. As SD-WAN can natively and seamlessly integrate with a variety of network environments, including physical servers and the cloud, it is ideal for a hybrid environment. Additionally, it is fully compatible with cloud service providers like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

This allows enterprises to maintain secure, continuous connectivity to applications and services running in physical, virtual or hybrid environments. To reduce delays and downtime, SD-WAN prioritises critical traffic and routes it across the best connections available. This improves hybrid networking for businesses that are gradually implementing digital transformation initiatives.

SD-WAN is essential for network transformation

Modern networks must be fast, reliable, secure and always available. This is what drives digital transformation and underlies ongoing improvements and innovations. Traditional networking technologies are rapidly becoming obsolete and inefficient. The goals of an enterprise’s digital acceleration can be significantly advanced through the implementation of SD-WAN.

Whether an on-premise, virtual or hybrid setup is used, it allows large companies to maintain central control and visibility over their entire network. It is a cutting-edge networking technology that combines security, reliability, and efficiency into a unified, simple-to-manage enterprise solution.

*Patrick Ndegwa is SEACOM Business Sales Lead for SEACOM East Africa.