The proliferation of cellular wireless services is a game changer for the WAN services market. For example, 5G can provide data services that are comparable to or faster than wired WAN service options such as MPLS and Internet broadband.
Many 5G services offer new capabilities to enterprise IT teams. 5G promises several advances, including speeds of over 1 GB, low latency, and network segmentation. While some advances will require future improvements, for example, network slicing requires new radio core systems, existing 5G networks will be as good as, and in some cases better than, comparable wired Internet broadband products. performance.
Today’s 5G networks deliver real-world speeds of 150 to 300 Mbps, which is enough bandwidth for most branch office requirements. In the coming years, the introduction of 5G radios will allow bandwidth capabilities to exceed 1 GB with particularly low latency. This provides enough cellular radio capacity for most branch offices’ WAN requirements and, over time, will provide significant competition in the $40 billion managed business services market.
Despite the hype surrounding 5G, the deployment cycle is still evolving, with the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues hampering carriers’ initial aggressive deployment plans. Coverage is expanding, but much of that growth is confined to major metropolitan areas, and carriers are just beginning to roll out affordable data plans with unlimited access. Additionally, 5G network slicing, which provides guaranteed quality of service (QoS) and dynamic resource provisioning, is currently only available in select U.S. cities.
Additionally, 6G wireless technology is not expected to enter the commercial market until 2030. Therefore, carriers still have plenty of time to roll out 5G to more regions.
What is the potential role of SD-WAN in 5G networks?
When combined with software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), which is part of software-defined networking (SDN), high-speed 5G services provide distributed organizations with improved reliability, faster provisioning, and faster bandwidth. . Additionally, when SD-WAN is combined with high-speed cellular wireless connectivity, new WAN architectures offer significant benefits for businesses with large numbers of employees in hybrid or permanent work-from-home (WFH) settings that need to connect to private data centers. becomes possible. Anywhere there is a public cloud or remote network infrastructure.
SD-WAN introduces IT leaders to a new wireless service provider that can complement, or even replace, existing wired services. Many organizations are already using LTE in their branch offices, such as retail stores and restaurants, to ensure high availability and reliability in the event of slowdowns or downtime on the main wireline. LTE’s quick provisioning times make it ideal for pop-ups and other temporary locations.
The combination of 5G and SD-WAN can provide reliable connectivity to branch offices and remote employees.
Other use cases combining 5G SD-WAN include medical clinic connectivity, factory automation, connected farms, and oil and gas fields. These markets have started implementing various IoT, AI, and data analysis mechanisms into their business workflows to streamline processes and identify trends to avoid network congestion and outages.
Yet another popular use case is for business-critical telecommuting employees who require secondary network access that provides redundancy and application performance benefits when combined with SD-WAN intelligence.
Cellular wireless provides additional WAN connectivity options for organizations with remote branch offices and work-from-home scenarios. Competition among major wireless carriers (such as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon) for 5G service is creating new Introducing the option of unlimited data plans.
5G and SD-WAN: Benefits of using them together
SD-WAN is becoming a standard technology that organizations use to intelligently control traffic over multiple WAN links. This improves the security of the Internet connection link and provides higher reliability and performance, allowing an organization to significantly increase its WAN bandwidth capacity at an affordable price.
SD-WAN technology continues to evolve with broader capabilities such as LAN and Wi-Fi, as well as native security and traffic management capabilities that reduce attack surfaces. By implementing software-defined branch services, SD-WAN suppliers can provide end-to-end traffic visibility from devices to their LAN, WAN, and cloud environments.
High-speed 5G connectivity provides IT organizations with another great WAN option to add to SD-WAN-driven architectures. 5G links can be provisioned simply and quickly, providing link diversity and protection from cable cuts such as backhoe outages.
As an alternative to current transport such as MPLS, DSL, integrated digital networks, and broadband cable, 5G brings cableless options that are easy to purchase, deploy, and manage. One of the key benefits of SD-WAN is the ease of managing multiple links for redundancy, load balancing, or traffic segmentation. While 5G may be known as a WAN transport, it can also provide out-of-band management capabilities that allow network resources to be accessed through external means.
The key benefits of using 5G and SD-WAN together are:
Easy link provisioning.
Diversity in branch and home office connectivity.
Link redundancy and QoS.
Active/active connectivity with MPLS-like bandwidth and latency performance.
Improving application performance with network slicing.
Improved security, visibility, and traffic management.
Support for edge computing environments.
Branch site functionality has been enhanced.
reasonable cost.
Disadvantages of 5G and SD-WAN
Carrier 5G availability and cost remain the two biggest hurdles for organizations considering deploying wireless technology for SD-WAN connectivity. Availability has become a top concern as carriers continue to struggle to meet deployment schedule goals. This has led some companies to consider other options, while carriers are moving into areas where businesses need 5G.
Even when 5G is available, some customers are disappointed with the signal strength they are receiving, which leads to undesirable performance. This is likely due to the fact that 5G signals do not propagate well through many building obstacles such as concrete. As a result, businesses may need to retrofit external antennas to their network closets, adding additional capital investment.
Additionally, the cost of new technologies such as 5G is always higher at the beginning of the service lifecycle to offset carrier capital and operational costs. Organizations looking to integrate 5G into their SD-WAN architecture to reduce costs may end up disappointed. Businesses often choose to wait until the cost of enterprise-grade fixed 5G connectivity decreases over time. However, as competition among carriers increases, this obstacle should disappear.
5G data services can be an ideal partner for SD-WAN WFH deployments.
Examples of 5G and SD-WAN services
The rise in mobile locations and employees working from home is driving demand for 5G. The remote work trend has been further amplified by the pandemic and is expected to remain a popular workforce option for the foreseeable future. 5G data services can be an ideal partner for SD-WAN WFH deployments, either as a primary line for broadband replacement or as a complement to existing broadband services for redundancy and QoS.
Here are three real-world examples of combining cellular and SD-WAN services:
Citrix. Citrix deploys SD-WAN services to a leading insurance company in India. There are over 900 sites with high-speed 4G LTE and reliable active/active connection mode internet.
cradle point. Cradlepoint deploys NetCloud service with dual cellular wireless connectivity to more than 1,400 large U.S. retail stores. Dual wireless services over 5G-enabled SD-WAN network devices provide reliable connectivity for POS systems, scanners, security cameras, and PCs.
VMware VeloCloud. VMware deploys VeloCloud to a US insurance company with over 10,000 sites. Each site has a wired (cable, DSL, or fiber) link along with an active/active LTE link.
Recommendations for IT leaders
In most SD-WAN deployments, organizations use cellular radio as a backup line only when the primary wired connection experiences degradation or outage. As 5G services become widely available and vendors offer attractive pricing for unlimited data plans, wireless will become a strong alternative option for his SD-WAN connectivity.
Some leading SD-WAN services have integrated 4G and 5G services with good results. As unlimited data plans become available, an IT leader should consider 5G in pop-up or temporary locations and also as part of his primary line option package alongside MPLS and Internet broadband. there is.
What’s next for 5G and SD-WAN?
As 5G technology continues to expand, SD-WAN can be used to provide branch office connectivity in more areas and with increased reliability. As a result, businesses are beginning to evaluate how they can take advantage of today’s high speeds and low latency. This includes real-time, delay-sensitive unified communications such as voice and video. Over time, a remote office may use his 5G service as the primary connectivity link, while using wired media as a backup or to offload latency-insensitive data across the WAN.
Additionally, 5G SD-WAN combinations are likely to be used more frequently in mobile pop-up business connectivity use cases in the future. This type of setup provides reliable connectivity with cargo asset tracking and short-term special event capabilities.
Editor’s note:This article has been updated to include advances in 5G and SD-WAN integration. This article was originally written by Lee Doyle in 2020 and updated by Andrew Froehlich. Mr. Doyle, an experienced IT market analyst and longtime TechTarget contributor, passed away in 2021. You can explore the articles he has written for his TechTarget on his contributor page.
Andrew Froehlich is the founder of InfraMomentum, an enterprise IT research and analysis firm, and president of West Gate Networks, an IT consulting firm. He has been involved in enterprise IT for over 20 years.
