Integrating LTE & 5G Connectivity into SD-WAN Solutions

In 2020, businesses worldwide underwent a significant shift as they were forced to adapt to lockdowns and social distancing guidelines. This change caused many business leaders to reassess the importance of digital transformation, satellite offices, and distributed organisations. As a result, connectivity became a critical consideration for many companies. 

The Importance of Connectivity in a Post-COVID World

They demanded flexible and cost-efficient network options that could supplement their existing cloud operations. To ensure business continuity across their increasingly complex networks, many organisations are choosing to partner with Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs), or IT Resellers.

How SD-WAN Provides WAN Simplification, Improved Performance, and Lower Costs

The traditional WAN model is becoming less prevalent as it restricts growth and agility due to its limitations in cloud environments. Consequently, companies are looking to refresh their WAN and increasingly considering SD-WAN as a solution. The benefits of SD-WAN are plenty, including improved performance, lower costs, bandwidth efficiency, and resilience. It creates a virtualized network overlay that spans across large geographical distances and connects multiple locations to a central network, relying on different forms of underlay communication such as MPLS or ADSL.

The Role of LTE & 5G in SD-WAN Connectivity Solutions

In addition to fixed-line connectivity, there are now more projects incorporating 4G and 5G as part of the SD-WAN connectivity solution. IT Resellers, MSPs, and ISPs, like Your Comms Group, are now bolstering their offerings by uniting public internet, LTE, private, and now 5G across a single, virtual, and high-capacity SD-WAN solution. Cellular plays an essential role in these deployments, acting as a backup to a fixed line, as well as providing the ability to rapidly deploy a connectivity solution where a fixed line is not available.

SD-WAN with 4G is being implemented in retail stores as a failover solution to ensure uptime and guarantee that they are always online to transact in stores when a fixed line goes down. Satellite offices, smaller deployments, and critical applications such as voice and video can also benefit from SD-WAN's efficiencies.

To select a cellular network provider, businesses and their IT partners have the challenge of addressing issues such as IP addressing and Network to Network Interfaces (NNI's), selecting the right tariff for high/low bandwidth needs, bandwidth management on the device, and proactively managing usage and bandwidth on the SIM. Specialist IoT connectivity providers, like Your Comms Group, can partner with IT Resellers, MSPs, and ISPs to deliver secure connectivity across multiple mobile cellular networks under one management platform (SIMPro) and bill. This minimises complexity for organisations, and they also have the relationships, knowledge, and experience to manage such processes.

Ensuring Network Security in the Age of SD-WAN

Security is a significant consideration when migrating to SD-WAN. It requires careful planning to avoid potential security risks. While SD-WAN provides many connectivity benefits by combining multiple WAN links into a single network, security measures must move in sync with the network. Any SD-WAN security strategy that is developed and implemented must be flexible and scalable enough to meet the organization's future infrastructure requirements.

The future of SD-WAN looks promising, as it brings businesses much-needed ROI by improving operational agility, performance, and efficiency. With cellular connectivity integrated into the solution, business leaders can have peace of mind with a failover solution to ensure uptime, and that networks can be monitored or redirected as needed to improve application availability. IT Resellers, MSPs, and ISPs can enhance their SD-WAN propositions by adding a simple, secure, and flexible 4G or 5G connectivity as a backup or primary connectivity solution where a fixed line is not available from an IoT managed service provider with expertise in the industry.

To find out more about integrating cellular into SD-WAN solutions, contact Your Comms Group, and speak with our connectivity experts.