While SD-WAN catches fire as the next trend in WAN deployment, traditional private, dedicated WAN (MPLS) still plays a key role and will be unlikely to phase out quickly or completely. Hybrid networks allow multi-site organizations to continue leveraging existing private WAN infrastructure while gaining the benefits of SD-WAN to aggregate additional, low cost WAN connections such as high-speed broadband, and apply quality of service (QoS) on traffic routed over private WAN while reducing traffic loads by offloading internet to local breakouts.
Hybrid networks provide a number of benefits over pure play internet based SD-WAN or private WAN (MPLS) alone, yet also come with considerations when implementing and managing which should not be ignored.
Benefits of a hybrid network
Hybrid networks will likely be the defining infrastructure model for most multi-site organizations for the foreseeable future. A properly configured hybrid network will be more agile, reliable, cost-effective than traditional WAN/MPLS networks without compromising security.
Improved Agility: Traditional private WAN built on MPLS assumes predictable traffic between internal resources and limited reliance on the internet. Hybrid networks leverage the advantages of both types of infrastructure to optimize speed and security while more flexibly supporting growth in bandwidth consumption, cloud, SaaS, BYOD and remote worker requirements.
Improved Network Reliability: Traditional WAN deployments rely on redundant architecture which remains passive until required. A properly designed hybrid network will keep all networks active and route traffic intelligently in the case of an outage in a service. Furthermore, dynamic management of hybrid networks removes the need for human intervention to manage failover, avoiding the likelihood of errors.
Cost-Effectiveness: By avoiding the requirement for fully redundant networks in traditional WAN infrastructure, a hybrid network significantly reduces operating costs of running multi-WAN infrastructures. Additionally, the cost of standard internet bandwidth will be substantially lower than dedicated private connections.
Effective Security & Performance Without Hard Costs: By deploying gateways closer to business sites with hybrid networks, and leveraging cloud-based gateways, the requirement to route all traffic through secure data centers can be mostly or fully avoided. This improves performance by focusing on the shortest routing path without compromising security controls.
Considerations of hybrid networks
Proper configuration and implementation drive the ability of a multi-site organization to achieve the benefits of a hybrid network.
Traffic Topology: When planning and implementing hybrid networks proper attention needs to be paid to analyzing application and service bandwidth and priority requirements. Wrong decisions during this step can lead to poor performance and work interruptions.
Routing Model: To assure uptime and network performance with a hybrid architecture, a proper design needs to be planned and implemented. The design needs to consider the failover requirements, traffic management rules, and availability of network services.
Internet Service Providers: Internet service providers can vary substantially in the quality and reliability of their connection, whereas private WAN (MPLS) services provide predictable and stable performance. When evaluating internet service providers, consider: last-mile delivery technology, inbound and outbound contention ratios/constraints, routing to internet peering points, and latency to other business sites.
Vendor Selection: To avoid unnecessary costs, risks, and delays in implementing a hybrid network the selection of the right vendors for services, hardware and software should be given careful consideration. Assure vendors demonstrate critical capabilities and experience defining traffic prioritization, developing routing models and proactively supporting network management.
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