SD-WAN Providers' Secret Weapon

May 23, 2016 Aerocom

Hey IT Buyers!

Do you currently have a back-up Internet connection at any of your company’s sites? Smart.

But what is it being used for, as we speak?

I’m assuming your answer is “nothing” or at best, a DMZ for wifi guests? Regardless, it’s pretty-much idle… a “just in case” loss of money, right?

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could use two separate Internet connections… from two separate ISP’s for all inbound and outbound traffic, simultaneously?

…Even for your mail server?

“Isn’t that what BGP Does?”

Yes it is. And BGP is a beautiful thing… if you’re service or hosting provider that has your own portable /24 [slash 24] of IP addresses (i.e. 256 addresses).

So how do you obtain a /24? There are a bunch of policies, created by ARIN, but in a nutshell… you must prove that you have a legit reason to use the majority of those 256 addresses…. so you usually have to be a fortune 100 company, ISP, hosting provider, etc.

BGP is not an option for normal companies.

So if BGP is out, what’s your other options?

Enter SD-WAN

As I had some discussions about SD-WAN with a few service providers, a benefit popped up that blew me away.

With SD-WAN, at any site, you can link up multiple 3rd party ISP connections into your SD-WAN box and use all of them, SIMULTANEOUSLY.

“But what about a Mail Server?”

“How is that possible?” I asked. “What about something like a mail server, that has a single static IP assigned to it.?” “How can it use both connections even though it’s IP is from only one of the service providers?”

The engineer from the SD-WAN replied “We assign it an IP address from the SD-WAN network… not the ISP’s they have installed on-site.”

Wow. So with an SD-WAN, you can use multiple Internet connections, simultaneously, for all applications.

USEFUL…

Just for that alone.

So for that reason alone, I think SD-WAN is pretty cool. Never mind the other advantages that I talk about in this other blog. That. One. Thing.

It’s that technology’s secret weapon for mass adoption.

About the Author
Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been helping companies with telecom and cloud services since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards and in 2011, he was honored as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. Follow Mike on LinkedIn, Twitter or SpiceWorks.