As the pandemic has run rampant across the globe over the last few months, countless companies have made the switch to remote work. Even as the effects of the pandemic begin to slow, it is unclear how many companies will return to in-person work.
With this in mind, securing data for both your customers and employees should be a top priority. When it comes to offering the best in-class data protection for your organization, an SD-WAN approach can make all the difference.
Learn the best ways to protect data at your company by discovering the benefits this powerful strategy can bring. Before getting too far ahead, however, it’s important to cover the basics.
What is an SD-WAN Approach?
For those unfamiliar, SD-WAN stands for “software-defined wide-area network”. In the past, wide-area network systems would connect a control center to the data plane for companies or general organizations. Unfortunately, this isn’t the best strategy for the cloud-based world society has become.
That’s why software-defined wide-area network systems were introduced in order to decouple the control plane from the data plane, further increasing the sophistication of the cloud. Over the last few years, this industry has exploded. For example, earlier this year, in a $420 million deal, Palo Alto Networks purchased Cloud Genix, a SD-WAN software company. Clearly this form of software is taking over digital business, and for good reason.
In the modern day, data is no longer stored in one single area. The cloud is not just one warehouse out in the middle of the desert but has evolved to encompass a multitude of servers and data warehouses all across the globe. This evolution challenged traditional WAN and helped give rise to SD-WAN, especially during the recent pandemic.
Further reading COVID-19 and Cybersecurity: Main Threats and Protective Measures
A unique capability of SD-WAN is its capability of automatically segmenting and securing the traffic going through WANs, while also having the ability to manage multiple connections between a source and cloud servers.
Making the switch to an SD-WAN approach also doesn’t mean you need to drop the security measures you already have in place. At its core, SD-WAN serves to improve and refurbish the security and privacy processes of your data.
Much of the advancements in SD-WAN are actually thanks to the development of artificial intelligence, which can be used to help automate the flow of traffic to wide-area networks around the world. Since 78% of professionals agree that artificial intelligence will play the largest role in contributing to data security for the upcoming decade, the general increase in SD-WAN usage should hardly be surprising.
The Benefits of SD-WAN
Now that you have a better understanding of what SD-WAN is and how it differs from traditional WAN, you are undoubtedly curious as to how exactly it can help your company.
As cloud-based applications have emerged in the last few years, so too has the need for a secure connection to drive traffic safely. Many of these applications require secure remote access, which is a flaw traditional WAN systems had.
With SD-WAN, however, integrating security into the connectivity fiber of these applications is easier than ever. By offering more interactive WAN dashboards and greater control over traffic control and partitioning, protecting data has been streamlined by this technology.
An added benefit that comes from traffic regulation is improved performance. By limiting who can access what on certain servers, traffic won’t overload those systems and cause them to slow down. This can help optimize the experience for anybody on those servers and improve overall speed.
Additionally, with employees working from their homes for the foreseeable future, data protection has become increasingly more difficult. If employees are having difficulty accessing certain documents on your companies’ servers due to slower performance, they may resort to using their own devices.
This can put sensitive company information at risk simply because your employees grew frustrated with the responsiveness of your systems. Switching to an SD-WAN approach could help resolve this potential problem by removing the frustration at its source. On top of this, personal devices could be extended to your companies’ new servers to help streamline your employees’ work process.
Making the switch to an SD-WAN approach may seem daunting, but working with companies that offer features such as bring-your-own-storage and 24/7/365 customer support can make the process go smoothly.
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What Is the Best Software to Integrate with an SD-WAN?
One of the best security measures to use in addition to the above setup is a VPN or Virtual Private Network. As covered above, data security is a major concern during the pandemic due to remote work.
Further reading Working Remotely: COVID-19 Raises the Standard for VPN Security
Hackers may potentially target employees’ smartphones or personal devices to siphon company information, but a VPN can help. The easiest way to think of a VPN is to think of it as a mask on the Internet. VPNs can hide your IP address and make your movements on the web relatively untraceable.
Nowadays, privacy is imperative to business operations. Newer consumer VPNs are paving the way for privacy adoption, offering free and low cost plans while still providing cutting-edge AES256 encryption. There’s no point cutting corners when your organization's security is at stake.
By combining privacy and security services such as VPNs with SD-WAN approaches, you can secure your company. Misinformation and coronavirus phishing schemes have been on the rise over the last few months, and protecting your employees and clients by educating them, while also providing top-notch security, can lead to a better business process.
Conclusion
As discussed, securing the data within your organization should always be a high priority. With more and more companies embracing remote work for the near future, and potentially beyond, data is going to become far more important than it already is.
In respect to this, ensuring data privacy at your company is about picking the right approach. Learn to back up your organization’s data with trusted systems and use an SD-WAN approach to centralize management and help your company grow quicker than ever before.
The world is changing, and the workforce is going through a state of disruption like never before. Instead of getting caught up in this disruption, embrace the changes and enhance your company for the future of work.
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