SD-WAN has been one of the most rapidly adopted technologies of the past decade, with the market expected to increase by 168% between now and 2024. The earliest adopters of SD-WAN were retailers, and for good reason. Retail chains have a critical need to maintain cohesive connectivity across all locations to manage inventory, monitor on-site devices such as refrigeration units or POS units, and collect and correlate sales data in real time. And because margins can be thin in the retail sector, this all needs to be done as efficiently and as cost effectively as possible. SD-WAN is the perfect solution.
But retailers are not the only organizations who benefit from the advantages of an SD-WAN strategy. Large enterprises with numerous branch and satellite offices are realizing significant savings by replacing their existing WAN solution branch with an integrated Secure SD-WAN device. SD-WAN solves several challenges at the same time, including rapid deployment, fast connectivity to cloud applications and resources, and unified management to reduce IT overhead. It also enables organizations to add more bandwidth to inexpensively, while providing users with direct and high-quality access to internet-based resources.
Of course, rapid access to online services also exposes organizations to incoming attacks from the internet. By selecting an SD-WAN solution with integrated security, they not only get ease of deployment and accelerated access to critical business applications, but they can apply a full stack of security on-site designed to see and protect all branch connections, whether out to the cloud, back to the core data center, or directly to the internet.
Here are several industries that can benefit from the power and protection offered by a Secure SD-WAN solution:
- Secure SD-WAN is an ideal solution for a manufacturing environment or OT network because advanced traffic control is integrated with security features like next generation firewall (NGFW), advanced threat protection, application inspection, IPS, URL filtering, and botnet protection.
- By applying a Security-Driven Networkingapproach to SD-WAN, which combines networking and security in a single appliance, Secure SD-WAN provides financial services organizations with the high-speed application performance they need to compete effectively in today’s digital marketplace, combined with built-in next-generation firewall functionality to maintain the integrity of transactions and back-end intellectual property.
- According to one recent study, researchers found that the current pandemic is reshaping the delivery of healthcarethrough the adoption of new services such as telemedicine. They forecast a sevenfold growth in telehealth between now and 2025, with a predicted five-year compound annual growth rate of nearly 40%. This will include things like providing remote exams via video, combined with user-friendly sensors and remote diagnostic equipment, to enable better patient outcomes. And as AI and robotics come into play, reliable, high-speed connections will only become increasingly important.
- Secure SD-WAN stands to play a critical role in this industry as well. It can ensure high-bandwidth connections to support real-time video and diagnostics information to pass between patients and healthcare providers.
SD-WAN For All
SD-WAN is far more than simply an effective solution for today’s retailers. Given the rapid rate of change impacting industries from manufacturing to healthcare, it stands to play an increasingly critical role for any organization looking to provide advanced connectivity to remote users and locations. And with the addition of integrated security, Secure SD-WAN can ensure that all transactions, in even the most dynamic environments, remain safe from growing cyber risks.
