Hybrid WAN FEATURED ARTICLE

SD-WAN is a network overlay technology that is seeing strong interest and adoption with businesses that want more control over their connectivity, more affordable links to their branch offices, and more effective solutions to access cloud services.

Businesses can elect to buy SD-WAN technology direct from suppliers and implement it themselves. But service providers want a piece of the action too, and in some cases businesses prefer to go through them.

That’s why service providers like Windstream (News - Alert) have introduced SD-WAN.

Windstream first made its SD-WAN service available in January. And today the service provider is expanding on its SD-WAN portfolio with additional broadband flexibility, improved self-service monitoring and control, and a managed service option called SD-WAN Concierge.

“Following our merger with EarthLink, we are enhancing our SD-WAN solution as we work to integrate our offerings,” explained Joseph Harding, executive vice president and enterprise chief marketing officer at Windstream. “The result is a powerful new solution that gives customers even greater network agility, scalability, and performance, all while also reducing costs and virtually eliminating downtime.”

SD-WAN Concierge is a fully-managed service through which Windstream monitors and optimizes the network for peak application performance. Windstream also has introduced the Business Aware (News - Alert) Cloud Network for its SD-WAN offering and now provides an integrated SD-WAN management tool.

The tool is a portal through which customers can see and control their SD-WAN networks. They can use it to configure new locations, security policies, and services.

As for the Business Aware Cloud Network, Windstream explains that allows for dynamic traffic steering based on real-time network conditions. This allows for better application performance related to Windstream security, MPLS, and UcaaS services as well as to the services from cloud providers.

Windstream adds that it also now offers an array of cloud-based solutions tailored to specific industries. Target (News - Alert) industries for these solutions are banking, healthcare, and retail.