How to Connect Multiple Offices on One Network
It’s easier than ever to securely connect satellite offices to headquarters.
After all, connecting multiple offices under one network offers a slew of benefits that business can’t ignore: collaborative workforces, secure access to business applications and systems, distributed network security strategies and much more.
Like much of the business solution landscape, however, there is a range of technologies available, each with their own features, advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we will compare the two most popular and viable solutions: SD-WAN and IPsec VPN.
SD-WAN
SD-WAN stands for software-defined wide-area network, which itself is an upgrade to traditional WANs, or wide-area networks. SD-WAN is virtual WAN architecture that allows businesses to leverage any combination of business connectivity options, including dark and lit fiber, MPLS, EVPL, cable modem internet and others. It intelligently directs WAN traffic, greatly improving applications’ and systems’ performance as well as cloud services adoption. It also load-balances between desperate connections, improving WAN availability and performance.
SD-WAN securely connects remote networks, even when offices are separated by distance, like geographically dispersed satellite office locations. It allows you to use software to manage WAN connectivity and network functionality, including security and policy compliance.
Among its many benefits, SD-WAN can facilitate the connection between business network environments. It’s fast, customizable, and has extensive endpoint management and security technology, which makes it a good option for offices with remote workers or mobile devices.
Additionally, SD-WAN is notable for its ease of integration with popular cloud-based software-as-a-service platforms, providing the secure remote access necessary to run cloud-based applications, AWS, Office 365 and more.
SD-WAN is also the top networking choice in terms of security. SD-WAN allows IT departments to dynamically manage, secure and segment traffic on the network with a user-friendly platform like Cisco Meraki’s dashboard.
Security approaches vary provider to provider; however, Cisco and Cisco Meraki both offer identity-based security, a new and highly effective security method that automatically provides and denies access to critical functions based on the identity of the requesting user.
VPN
Virtual private networks (VPNs) extend a business’s private network across a public network and enable users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network.
VPNs are often the more affordable alternative for enterprise-level operations. VPN technology allows businesses and organizations to securely connect remote sites and networks via an encrypted, managed IPsec connection.
It’s an entirely viable solution that can be quite easy to deploy and, when combined with SD-WAN, can provide a powerful combination of improved network performance, availability and security. The VPN encryption does add a bit of overhead to WAN connections; however, when combined with SD-WAN, the benefits far outweigh the need for additional bandwidth.
Overall, VPNs operate best as encrypted tunnels between two or more endpoints. ChimeNet’s fully certified engineers are technical experts in IPsec VPN deployments and the ongoing support of one-to-many or many-to-many remote connections.
ChimeNet is a managed services provider that specializes in providing business connectivity solutions to organizations that need to securely connect multiple locations. We can help manage that connectivity over time with our managed IT services.
To learn more about how we help configure and unify multiple branches with SD-WAN and VPN technologies, check out our business connectivity solutions.