The Rise of the Cloud WAN

Wide Area Network (WAN) optimization technology cannot only accelerate slow applications across a network but it can also be used to improve the performance of cloud computing. As WAN optimization can help companies to lower the overall costs of running a network with increasing user productivity by speeding application performance over long distances, WAN technology has been one of the widest growing technologies since a few years. A WAN- optimized network provides the same experience irrespective of the individual’s place which can be the company’s headquarter, remote offices or a branch.

Now-a-day’s most of the network managers prefer work on WAN- optimized technology. In fact in order to improve the performance of applications such as Exchange and Windows, many companies have arranged WAN optimization controller for application delivery. But do these companies know that they can take advantage of this technology to improve their cloud computing performance?

Cloud computing and WAN technology

As a large number of new startups make it easier to provision and organize WAN services in the cloud with a software- only model, cloud technology is pushing WAN technology toward the consumer paradigm. The other advantages of WAN services are security, WAN optimization and business-class internet and application policy control.

To make WAN services easy to manage and consume, the software- defined WAN (SD-WAN) is designed. WAN services are growing and the market for enterprise WAN services could be upward of $7.5 billion by 2020.

Making WAN easier

As per many of the IT experts, private-line WAN connections and protocols such as MPLS are too expensive and enterprise managers are also not interested in dealing with managing proprietary hardware in order to manage the WAN.

This is where cloud WAN can prove to be useful. The simple thing to do is to push maximum functionality into the cloud. There is no need of proprietary lock-in and eccentric CLIs when you have WAN or SD- WAN.

This trend in networking is following the move in enterprise applications. Cloud computing has made enterprise technology a lot easier to consume. The very first popular cloud applications which are Google Apps and Salesforce decreased the friction to consume and install the software. In the traditional software, an IT manager first has to install a server and a network in order to support the application then later on install the application and manage it also. But the cloud which is available for everyone is just a click away, saving a lot of your time.

With the increase in technology, the homer-based broadband services have become easier to facilitate. Now, you don’t need to go through a huge process to install broadband services as the houses are already prewired. This is what both service providers and IT managers wish to have- fast provisioning and easy management.

Cloud WAN players

In venture capital more than $360 million has gone into the cloud WAN space, establishing a wave of startups pushing other startups to adopt WAN. Startups emerging include Aryaka, CloudGenix Pertino, and VeloCloud. Others playing in this market include Silver Peak and Talari.

Aryaka is the leader in this group with having around $80 million in VC funding. They consist of the global network of POPs and these POPs give priority to SaaS apps and accelerate performance. There are also a huge variety of added services which are offered like compression, link redundancy and IPSec security.

Others like VeloCloud are focused more on the branch office connectivity challenge. They allow the organizations to secure the Internet for business quality WAN by offering routing software, virtual orchestration and VPN in the cloud.

The cloud WAN is beneficial for both customers and service providers as there is less management stress, lower hardware costs and less time is spent while configuring hardware devices increasing business productivity.