SD-WAN: Manufacturing
Currently, many manufacturers are undergoing a digital transformation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for more intelligent factories, more agile supply chains, and cloud-based software are rapidly taking place. Besides that, the requirement to support global sites and applications scattered across multiple cloud providers, reliable, high-performance, secure networks-become more crucial than ever.
Due to being geographically dispersed, factories, warehouses, and branch offices. Manufacturers must now scale quickly to meet increasing connectivity needs because of the pandemic, which changes the network priorities, manages the network and application, and monitors performance across multiple locations.
As manufacturers will benefit from an increase in agility and become more digital because of IoTs and cloud adoption, on the other hand, traditional WANs are too rigid and are not cloud-ready. To cope with more significant network stress, manufacturers will likely choose to increase bandwidth or scale up, whereby this decision could likely increase complexity and increase operating costs significantly.
Migration from a traditional WAN to SD-WAN helps manufacturers in many ways, significantly facilitating their operations and meeting organizational goals. Here is how SD-WAN can help manufacturers around the world.
Improves Connectivity
SD-WAN enables seamless communication securely between all parts of an organization, regardless of hundreds or thousands of distributed locations globally. Despite the growing need for access to the cloud, SD-WAN management effectively allocates network resources to achieve better performance. Too, workloads are balanced, allowing manufacturing organizations to manage their operations better.
Lowers Network Complexities
In SD-WAN, the WAN infrastructure is simplified by automating tasks such as monitoring, prioritizing and determining critical and non-critical application paths, and allowing traffic to be configured centrally. Additionally, SD-WAN makes it possible for manufacturing industries to integrate software that increases network security and manages local LANs.
Promotes Network Security
Manufacturers can utilize SD-WAN to deploy a secure network while limiting the likelihood of vulnerabilities. The SD-WAN integrated security features such as malware protection, firewall, intrusion detection, and intrusion prevention solutions to protect manufacturers’ networks from attacks. As a result, SD-WAN enables the preservation of critical customer and organizational data on the web, preventing data breaches.
Segregates the Network
Manufacturers can establish policies that enhance the safety of their networks using SD-WAN, which facilitates network segmentation and helps increase data security while improving network performance. Manufacturers can segment their networks by deciding how traffic flows within the network. They could not allow all traffic to reach another part or limit the flow based on different traffic characteristics or source and destination options. Besides, SD-WAN also controls who can access sensitive data and applications within the organization.
Increases Flexibility
The SDWAN provides manufacturers with greater flexibility, enabling them to adapt their operations without compromising the efficiency of communications or operations from remote regions. In contrast to traditional WANs that require more significant time for deployment, SD-WANs allow manufacturers to deploy and adapt to changing workload requirements quickly. Moreover, SD-WAN can also be deployed as a cloud-based or on-premise solution, thus increasing flexibility.
Optimizes Internet of Things (IoT)
The manufacturing industry uses IoT in different locations and operations, such as the factory floor, warehouse, and supply chain. Since IoT devices must communicate with a data center onsite or in the cloud, IoT poses challenges and vulnerabilities to the network. The SD-WAN solves this issue by reducing network complexity and meeting IoT needs. Rather than altering or changing hardware, SD-WAN enables centralized management and offers visibility while also encrypting IoT assets across the network.
