The availability and utility of wireless wide area networks (WAN) have started to increase, and the cost of using them has started to decrease. It is capable of reaching rates that are far faster than earlier single or multiple T1 lines and DSL, and it can deliver wide-area access to virtually any physical location.

Undoubtedly, there are obstacles to overcome, the most significant of which are concentrated on the company concept. It is difficult to obtain a wireless wide area network (WWAN) connection priced in the same manner that a wired connection is: paying for a certain speed, with no arbitrary restriction on how many bits can be sent in a billing period. This is because wired connections are priced differently.

Therefore, IT teams that use WWAN are typically forced to choose between two unfavorable alternatives: a) either pay a flat rate but, once a threshold number of bytes is hit, face a sharp decrease in speed; or b) pay a per-gigabyte overage fee for usage that exceeds the threshold. Both of these alternatives are extremely inconvenient. Sometimes, carriers want to push both alternatives, which include slowing down the vehicle and paying more for each additional drink consumed.

SD-WAN is able to assist IT take advantage of one of the cardinal characteristics of WWAN, which is that there is no lead time for service at a new site, as well as mitigating some of the other drawbacks. The combination of SD-WAN with WWAN creates a powerful solution, particularly for corporations that have ambitious plans for creating new branches, those that have numerous tiny sites, and those that have several locations outside of urban regions.

Connectivity is the Primary Focus of SD-WAN.

The most fundamental goal of SD-WAN is to improve corporate resilience by lowering the frequency, severity, and length of WAN outages.

The foundation of SD-WAN was WAN virtualization, which combined connections from several sources and simultaneously load-balanced traffic across all lines. It was possible to seamlessly switch from a poor link to good links by keeping all of the links active, and it was also possible to seamlessly switch back after the service on the problematic connection was restored. Users may experience several link failures and restores without ever understanding what happened. This was a big victory for both user productivity and IT, since link difficulties could be reduced from critical, stop-what-you’re-doing concerns to watch-and-wait ones that often resolved themselves.

WWAN and SD-WAN for easier setup

A new branch may be operational in as little as an hour by deploying an SD-WAN node with a cellular modem. New links can be linked to the SD-WAN and brought online without interfering with ongoing operations if wired connectivity is anticipated, as is typically the case for cost and performance reasons. The WWAN can be turned down, if sufficient wired connections have been added to provide the required degree of redundancy, without affecting services.

On-demand capacity

Of fact, the WWAN does not have to be totally turned off; it may instead be repositioned to provide bandwidth as needed. It can serve as bursting capacity or emergency failover connectivity.

When there are few alternatives for backup wired connectivity or a limited number of service providers, WWAN failover might be helpful. When the primary WAN link breaks, the SD-WAN may maintain the WWAN connection with a trickle of traffic that is much below monthly traffic limitations while switching all traffic to it.

Similar to this, link-costing factors and prioritizing settings can be changed to let specific types of traffic use the WWAN even when there isn’t enough capacity for them.

SD-WAN can be essential in avoiding less-critical traffic from generating surprise mega-bills from the WWAN provider by bringing transparency to use and policy controls to bear on the WWAN’s issues.

Additional redundancy

Even from several service providers, it might be challenging to provide true path-redundant connection in many areas without spending more money on construction. This is due to the fact that all wired connectivity uses the same conduits, poles, or foundational hole. One physical catastrophe might break all the connections.

A WWAN link, on the other hand, will practically never be impacted by cable disruptions. Additionally, cell services are typically restored prior to other types of connection in the case of a large-scale disaster like a flood or storm. Even temporary towers can be utilized to supply them.

Therefore, while WWAN may be added to an SD-WAN as simply another connection, it does offer certain special advantages in terms of redundancy and agility. Additionally, SD-WAN may increase the viability of WWAN for more organizations by balancing load across many connections, prioritizing and limiting use of WWAN links as needed.