What are Managed SD-WAN Services?

It’s quite clear that the outsourcing of managed IT services to third parties tasked with the 24/7 maintenance, security, and affordable upkeep of IT infrastructure and cloud computing has been nothing short of a miracle for firms of all sizes. Perhaps ‘peace of mind’ should be the operative term every provider should use to market themselves.

Yet as a small business trying to engage with these services for the first time, it can feel somewhat dizzying to figure out what the jargon means, how it applies to your business, and what you should be paying for. In this post, we’ll discuss what Managed SD-WAN services are and how you may wish to integrate them.

What is managed SD-WAN?

SD-WAN stands for ‘software-defined wide area network,’ which refers to a means of delivering managed software orchestration as part of an IT managed service.
This serves as a virtualized WAN connection that incorporates all existing network connections as an overlay. In effect, it helps the management of the network remain simplified, as data packets are sent through the most optimized and security-conscious processes possible. This means that enterprises can more easily administratively control all network traffic through a single, unified dashboard.

What does SD-WAN do?

Some of the most popular uses for SD-WAN include increasing WAN capacity by integrating both public and private network services, also known as dual connectivity. This means that a firm can reserve private network potential for business-essential or low latency applications. Cloud migration is also a big utility worth considering here, as application-based routing is now possible through this service. Of course, SD-WAN also unlocks geographic expansion through these means, too.

How is SD-WAN as a service different from managed SD-WAN?

Managed SD-WAN is a provision curated by managed IT service providers, solving a problem any organization may have when they don’t have the time or resources to manage their own SD-WAN. This means that the provider makes the service available on its own private network, as opposed to partnering with an SD-WAN vendor to add that to their portfolio.
Furthermore, the pricing is typically available as a monthly bundled addon, rather than a multiyear service contract offered by the alternative. SD-WAN as a service typically means the end-user and customer is responsible for the monitoring, management, and changing the SD-WAN service through a cloud-based portal.

Read More: https://www.extnoc.com/blog/what-are-managed-sd-wan-services/