Odidos SD-WAN e-book sets the premise that cloud apps, mobile solutions, IoT, and big data are driving IT teams to develop and expand their business networks, simplify management, and lower costs. It also argues that new technologies generate and consume data that demand more network performance and flexibility, while legacy networking struggles to meet those needs.
The e-book then defines SD-WAN as a software-driven network layer that intelligently and dynamically forwards applications and data through the WAN, deployed over available IP or internet networks and described as supporting a more modern WAN. It says SD-WAN can centralize application performance management in a portal independent of transport type, improve visibility by letting users view business applications (including cloud services) in one place, and enable prioritization of applications based on predefined preferences. The document also outlines a best path model using network throughput, availability, and policy, plus dynamic link-recovery to reduce packet loss impact and keep high-priority real-time traffic stable, while claiming these tasks can be performed automatically without administrators doing manual work.
On deployment and security, the e-book describes connecting SD-WAN to existing VPN environments and running hybrid WAN implementations where SD-WAN uses internet transport while other sites use VPN based on MPLS. It adds that it can integrate with a future-proof transition and keep applications running in an existing VPN hosted in a data center or the cloud accessible from SD-WAN locations. For security, it positions Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) as the successor of SD-WAN, describes SASE as a cloud-based platform combining network and security, and states that it eliminates the need for physical firewalls; it also explains next-gen firewall concepts as inspecting traffic beyond source, destination, and protocol/port, including scanning and controlling content.