Network overprovisioning is an expensive way to deal with uncertain load situations. Real-time provisioning based on network load metrics is a better strategy as it allows for resource optimization. Software-defined networking is all about having full visibility of network resources and allocating them on demand. This empowers communication service providers to make best use of their infrastructure. Open interfaces enable instant service activation across network layers and vendors, and resource bottlenecks can be identified, empowering network expansions. Even network failures can be healed by intelligent software algorithms.
Enterprises need high performance connectivity services for their mission critical control and business continuity applications. They don't want to waste money by sending high bandwidth but non-time-critical traffic over expensive links backed up by strong SLAs. SD-WAN is squaring the circle by routing enterprise traffic in an intelligent way. With SD-WAN, high-priority traffic goes over high-availability links with guaranteed bandwidth, while best-effort traffic is securely tunnelled through the internet.
