Accelerate IoT Innovations with SD-WAN

Short answer: SD-WAN helps IoT deployments by managing many remote endpoints from one software platform. It lets teams partition the network, prioritise bandwidth for IoT applications, monitor security and link health centrally, and change connectivity without reworking site infrastructure.

The emerging intricacies associated with the Internet of Things need a robust Software-Defined WAN approach to simplify IT architectures and address bandwidth governance challenges.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of new technologies. Digital transformation plans that companies had set over three or four years were fast-forwarded into a few months.

Amidst the pandemic-induced social distancing guidelines, organizations had to implement work-from-home policies for their employees almost overnight. This sudden change paved the way for a massive digital transformation focus. Organizations had to raise the bar to modernize their IT architecture and strengthen network security to provide a resilient and agile work ecosystem.

Two technologies that garnered the most attention from businesses during that period were the Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

IoT devices and sensors include various applications, including intelligent lighting, connected cars, traffic analysis, medical supervision, contactless biometrics, robotics, and many more. The technology has been tested and implemented by several organizations to automate their manual processes, monitor office-space usage, inventory management, and designing an intelligent parking system.

On the other hand, SD-WAN is an enterprise networking technology that allows companies to connect remote locations to a distributed corporate network using a software-based approach. Crafted specially to increase the adaptability, security, and automation for any application, SD-WAN platforms are well ahead of technologies like MPLS and especially suited to IoT applications.

Why does a growing IoT ecosystem need SD-WAN?

Industry experts see IoT as one of the most promising technologies to accelerate digital transformation.

Linked through the cloud, the IoT devices exchange a massive quantity of data regularly, which gets interpreted through intelligent analytic dashboards by organizations to make their operations and services more efficient.

For businesses, deploying IoT will go a long way in streamlining workflows and enhancing data optimization. However, in the distributed workforce environment, where the number of endpoints will grow incessantly, managing networks and bandwidth can become complicated. This can impact the organization’s cognitive operations and upset various cloud applications available to employees and devices in offices.

With the cloud becoming a dominant force for delivering applications, SD-WAN has become a practical way to provide the necessary bandwidth and flexible hybrid WAN.

In the context of the multi-cloud environment and the growing ecosystem of connected devices, the future of work will require that IT react in real-time through automated processes, regardless of employees’ workplace. This can only be accomplished when distributed devices are reliably connected with minimal latency and fully supported by the secure network. And to fully implement this smart, self-contained work environment, SD-WAN can play a critical role in enabling organizations to connect, collaborate, and manage their networks effectively in a modernized way.

Because of its software-based approach, SD-WAN enables enterprises to monitor various connectivity patterns and endpoints from a unified platform. This technology helps organizations and network administrators to strictly monitor bandwidth, security, power, compliance, and other requirements required by IoT devices at remote sites.

Using SD-WAN, companies can partition network architectures, helping them to optimize their bandwidth usage. This ensures the amount of data required for various IoT applications, improves network resiliency, and drives cost efficiencies. Intelligent integrated analysis and remote monitoring capabilities ensure that bandwidth is used to its full potential, that network failure is minimal, and security threats are addressed quickly.

The technology also provides businesses the flexibility to rapidly upgrade the connectivity needs without any infrastructure-related amendments.

How will 5G change SD-WAN for IoT?

As 5G becomes available across the globe, IoT is changing almost every process and the way we connect – to our homes, offices, doctors, or government. Through data science and analytics, IoT solutions aim to make a place of work safer, enhance customer experience, increase the distributed workforce’s productivity, and strengthen businesses’ resiliency.

5G is changing networking, introducing new applications and putting more stress on virtual networks. SD-WAN solutions are capable of listing traffic and load-balancing requirements to further fast-track array of application performance, which is much needed in IoT. Even though users connect to different services, SD-WAN solutions can prove a useful bridge to establish flexibility manage bandwidth, ensuring a consistent user experience.

To adapt to this new environment and leverage the full potential of IoT enabled connected devices, organizations need to weigh their options and consult with a specialist partner, such as Nexapp, to deploy a custom SD-WAN architecture.

Nexapp Technologies uses a software-defined approach for managed integrated converged SD-WAN for business to business (B2B) legacy and virtual environment, machine to machine (M2M), and IoT. With 75,000+ devices deployed for 400+ enterprise and banking customers, the company helps organizations to connect, secure, and run the network with expert, proactive managed-hands-on support as needed.

With 5G now live in India, the time is right to assess the capabilities that enhance the digital ecosystem and accelerate enterprise innovation and IoT transformation.

Related: IoT and M2M connectivity, Nexapp SD-WAN Enterprise and 5G wireless SD-WAN.

Frequently asked questions

Why does IoT need SD-WAN?

IoT adds many endpoints at remote sites, which makes bandwidth and security hard to manage. SD-WAN gives one platform to monitor and control bandwidth, security and compliance for those devices.

Can SD-WAN separate IoT traffic from office traffic?

Yes. SD-WAN can partition the network so IoT applications get the bandwidth they need. Nexapp's SD-WAN Enterprise controller supports VRF segmentation and application-aware steering.

How does 5G fit with SD-WAN for IoT?

5G adds wireless capacity for connected devices, and SD-WAN load-balances traffic across 5G and other links so IoT applications keep performing.

What does Nexapp offer for IoT connectivity?

Nexapp's Instaroute routers support industrial protocols such as Modbus, DNP3 and MQTT, and its SASE platform includes IoT/OT security. Nexapp also offers an IoT/M2M solution.

Learn more about deploying SD-WAN with 5G from Nexapp.