Think about how an enterprise network used to operate. The network was contained within fixed parameters — and at most, you’d connect to applications that were located offsite in a data center. Any capacity increases were planned out months in advance and applications were carefully rolled out on a periodic basis, with little ability to adapt on the fly.

It all seems so slow compared to the modern network. Nowadays, the cloud allows businesses to obtain scalable infrastructure and resources, and gives users the ability to connect to essential applications from multiple devices and operating systems, from locations around the globe.

But freedom comes with unpredictable traffic and spiking bandwidth. Allowing your users to open up any app they want, virtually anywhere in the world means you don’t know exactly when your data use will jump.

That’s where SD WAN comes in. And that’s why your organization needs SD WAN from an experienced provider to handle your migration to the cloud. Here are the key reasons why you need SD WAN if your organization is moving to the cloud:

Traditional networks are outdated
Traditional networks weren’t designed with cloud in mind. They have trouble dealing with
spiking, bandwidth-hungry applications and unpredictable traffic. That can lead to performance issues and angry end users.

SD WAN helps you control your traffic and prioritizes key applications, helping to keep cloud applications running smoothly and improving the end-user experience.

SD WAN gives your users a better experience (without a huge investment)

Application experience is key. In the consumer world, if an app doesn’t work well, customers will simply delete it and download another one. That mindset is quickly carrying over to the enterprise world. It’s up to businesses to make sure their networks can enable success and provide a top-notch experience for all their essential applications.

SD WAN changes things. It’s able to look at the performance parameters of applications residing in public, private and hybrid cloud environments and route them across the most appropriate link in order to improve performance. SD WAN leverages your existing connectivity infrastructure to make sure all of your applications run efficiently.

In addition, integrating solutions such as Secure Cloud Interconnect (SCI) can improve performance even more while also adding an additional layer of security. Think of it as your secure on-ramp to the cloud. SCI uses a high performance Private IP MPLS-based VPN network to connect you securely to cloud providers around the world. All of a sudden, you don’t have to deal with multiple point-to-point connections, but traffic is separated from the public internet, giving you additional security and peace of mind.

SD WAN frees your organization from the data center

By combining SD WAN capabilities with a cloud infrastructure, you no longer have to be handcuffed to the data center. Some partners, including Verizon, have deployed SD WAN edge devices inside of cloud providers like Amazon Web Services. That gives you quick access to applications in AWS, while still maintaining a solid connection to your legacy applications within the data center. The result? Fast apps and better performance.

Modern applications need a modern network. But updating to these new solutions and integrating assets and applications can be daunting and often times difficult. Engaging a partner who has the resources, knowledge and experience managing this kind of change is critical to a successful migration. A solutions architect can analyze your network and application environment, plus your business objectives, to determine how SD WAN can best enable your cloud applications, improve their performance and help achieve your desired business outcomes.

Learn more about Verizon’s Managed SD WAN.