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Ready or not: It’s up to your SD-WAN.

Cisco SD-WAN is a transformative networking solution for managing and operating your WAN infrastructure. Using the most sophisticated, cloud-based software, SD-WAN delivers a secure, flexible and rich services architecture for organisations .

Between building a network and unlocking its promise, there's a bridge

The volume of traffic and wide array of users looking to access applications, from different sources and locations, impacts WAN performance. For many large businesses, application performance and user experience are suffering.

Cisco SD-WAN significantly increases your WAN performance and improves user experience. This cutting-edge networking solution provides faster links and better usage and application analytics, and you can deploy applications in minutes on any platform, with consistent application performance.

SD-WAN application performance and UX benefits in a nutshell:

  • Up to 4x application performance from your WAN
  • Predictable SLA for all critical enterprise applications
  • Dynamic application traffic routing for efficient delivery
  • Significantly improved user experience
  • Multiple hybrid active-active links for every network scenario
  • Better application/usage analytics to enable the right services in the right places

 

Comprehensive network visibility and management capabilities

Cisco SD-WAN simplifies operations with automation and cloud-based management. This transformative IT networking solution lowers operational costs and improves resource usage for multisite deployments. Branch office and regional data centre hub sites can be deployed and connected using virtual or physical secure routers.

The key to the success of SD-WAN is its single management dashboard, which offers organisations comprehensive network visibility and control across all locations. Deploy the dashboard in virtual, cloud or physical form factors, with full cloud management, and enforce policy in real time at application level.

SD-WAN enables efficient configuration and management of WAN, cloud and security, freeing up IT teams to focus on optimising their processes and implementing projects to drive growth.

SD-WAN network benefits in a nutshell:

Unified Managed Dashboard

Unified management dashboard for configuration and management of WAN, cloud and security

Cloud Management

Centralised, cloud-first management and operations

Data and Analytics

Advanced analytics and assurance for application service level agreement

Monitoring and Troubleshooting

Monitoring and troubleshooting features with simplified workflows

IT Management Systems

Efficient management capabilities to free up IT teams to focus on business-critical tasks and streamline key processes

Enhanced IT network security, threat prevention and compliance

In an age of cloud computing, enhanced security for WAN is paramount. The key is visibility. Cisco SD-WAN offers the required level of visibility and control over traffic flowing through the network to manage the risk of threats. The software provides robust and scalable security that’s easy to manage, deploy and maintain, which empowers businesses to adopt the latest cloud services.

Cisco SD-WAN has been built based on the zero-trust model and multilayer security encrypts and protects all data from the WAN edge to the cloud, so you can securely connect your users to applications in minutes. Threat prevention is enforced in the right places. You can fully integrate Cisco's world-class Talos threat intelligence centre with Cisco and Meraki SD-WAN solutions.

Cisco is combining IT networking and security like no other vendor. SD-WAN is breaking new ground for network visibility, management, performance and security, giving businesses the confidence to unleash the full potential of cloud computing.

SD-WAN security benefits in a nutshell:

Firewall and Intrusion Prevention

Application-aware policies, including firewall and intrusion prevention

Rapid Threat Detection

Rapid threat detection compared with existing WAN security

Network Policy Enforcement

Real-time policy enforcement around network problems

Networking Compliance

Meets industry compliance requirements with end-to-end segmentation 

Cisco Meraki Threat Protection

Integrated threat protection with Cisco and Meraki solutions

Cisco Threat Intelligence Centre Talos

Full integration into Cisco's industry-leading threat intelligence centre (Talos)

Cisco SD-WAN in action

SD-WAN is a game-changer for global businesses and is the providing the benchmark for secure, optimised WAN management for the cloud era.

Take a look at these SD-WAN case studies and here from about the great impact Cisco SD-WAN has created for our customers.

Check out this video of Cisco's Brink Sanders (Managing Director for Network and Software Transformation) talking about the SD-WAN solution and the challenges with cloud that it helps businesses to overcome.

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Key network connectivity challenges & solutions provided by Cisco SD-WAN


Here is a handy summary of the top WAN challenges for businesses and the solutions that SD-WAN offers to address these challenges:

Operational costs


Challenges

  • Prohibitive bandwidth costs
  • Traffic grows 30% year-on-year (YoY)
  • Rigid architecture requires 6-9 months for simple policy change

Solutions

  • Mix MPLS with low-cost broadband/LTE
  • Centralised management and enhanced app visibility
  • Up to 50% reduction in WAN costs
  • Change control capabilities reduced from six months to a matter of days

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Application performance & user experience

Challenges

  • User experience suffering due to volume of user traffic
  • Application performance SLA is unpredictable
  • 70% of app outages are tied to networking problems

Solutions

  • Predictable application SLAs
  • Improved business-critical and real-time application user experience
  • Active-active hybrid links
  • App-aware policies with real-time enforcement
  • No app outages due to networking

Network visibility and management

Challenges

  • Lack of visibility and control over application usage
  • Gaps in analytical capabilities
  • Limited control and poor cloud-management  

Solutions

  • Built-in centralised management dashboard for the cloud
  • Comprehensive network visibility and control across all locations
  • Deploy dashboard in virtual, cloud or physical form factors
  • Granular monitoring and analytics for management, with simplified workflows

Security and compliance

Challenges

  • Difficulties securing complex user base and traffic
  • Struggling to manage usage of critical enterprise assets, wireless guests and business partners
  • Becoming more vulnerable to threats in hybrid architectures

Solutions

  • WAN segmentation with granular policies
  • Auto VPN, smart traffic load balancing and failover (including 3G/4G)
  • Provides security and reliability over Internet connection, without MPLS
  • Isolation for critical enterprise assets, wireless guests and business partners
  • Robust security for hybrid networks, including authorisation and encryption

Cloud capabilities

Challenges

  • More than half of traffic is in the cloud, yet many networks are not cloud-aware
  • Poor SaaS performance
  • Public cloud/Azure contains complex workflows

Solutions

  • Single overlay that extends to data centre, cloud and branch
  • Dynamic optimisation for O365 and other SaaS
  • Seamless WAN extension to multiple public clouds
  • 4x improvement in SaaS response times

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Efficiency and business agility

Challenges

  • Inefficient networking architecture for cloud-era traffic and usage patterns
  • Connectivity limitations
  • Slow deployment times for new sites and emergency relocations
  • IT staff spending too much time on network support, fixes and security issues

Solutions

  • Single, centralised management dashboard for configuration and management of WAN, cloud and security
  • Template-based, zero-touch provisioning for all locations
  • Faster branch deployment, enabling organisations to deploy new sites in significantly shorter timescales
  • Frees up your IT team to focus on streamlining processes and driving growth

Working with Vohkus and Cisco

Vohkus is a Cisco Premier Partner, specialising in Cisco Advanced Data Centre Architecture and Cisco Security Express. We provide expert consulting, implementation and managed IT services using Cisco’s networking, wireless, mobility and security products.

Cisco SD-WAN is currently deployed across leading Fortune 2000 enterprises, with thousands of production sites in all major industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, distribution, insurance, finance, retail, energy, logistics and government.

Our experts will advise you on the key steps to implementing Cisco SD-WAN. We assess which SD-WAN solution (Meraki or Viptela) is right for your business requirements.

Cisco Viptela SD-WAN is most suited to organisations with existing Cisco on-premises infrastructure, looking to update, expand and enhance cloud capabilities. Cisco Meraki SD-WAN is better suited to those with lean IT teams and/or existing Meraki infrastructure, due to its ease of deployment and out-of-the-box optimised feature set.

Get a Live 1-2-1 Demo of SD-WAN and a Free consultation on WAN transformation with the Vohkus team

Fancy getting a closer look at Cisco SD-WAN? Get a live one-to-one demo from the Vohkus team and see the solution in action.

Want to know what SD-WAN can do for you? You can request a free half-day consultation with our networking and security solutions team to discuss SD-WAN further and understand how the solution could transform your capabilities.

What will your free consultation consist of?

  • A bespoke half-day consultation, based on your organisation's priorities.
  • Our consultants will assess your business requirements and opportunities for improvement
  • You’ll get in-depth advice from our dedicated team of Cisco experts and WAN specialists.

To request your free consultation, simply fill out the short form and we’ll be in touch to arrange the session.

*Consultations can be done in-person or remotely, depending on your preference and location.