SD-WAN
Software-defined wide area networking, which manages multiple internet links intelligently across sites.
It lets a site use several connections at once, steering traffic by application and failing over automatically when a link degrades, without users noticing a dropped session.
For multi-site businesses it replaces expensive private circuits with commodity broadband plus intelligence, and centralizes policy so a change applies everywhere at once.
Where this comes up
SD-WAN sits inside our networks and infrastructure work. If you are trying to work out what this means for your own environment rather than in the abstract, that is the page worth reading next, and a short call will get you a straight answer faster than either.
Related terms
VPN An encrypted tunnel that connects a remote user or site to a network as though they were locally attached. Quality of service Prioritizing certain network traffic so that latency-sensitive applications stay usable under load. Uptime The proportion of time a system is available, usually expressed as a percentage over a period.