Why Agile IT Demands a Responsive WAN Edge Infrastructure?

In this information age, one of our best resources is the data collected from different sources. The digital technologies and networking infrastructure have enabled us to identify customer’s buying trends and patterns, and to design their products and services accordingly, to increase revenue. Our manufacturing culture, nowadays, practices an efficient methodology that allows us to skip the wastage of data within the manufacturing operations.

The advent of IoT

Internet of things is a productivity optimization layer that includes smart applications and devices which help in the automation, data collection and analysis. The data gathered from these systems help to gain valuable insights about the users who subscribe to the products. The data obtained from the IoT devices help to identify the areas that require improvement and enhance the performance of the product in the process.

IoT is mainly supported through the use of cloud computing devices which are developed to allow low-cost processing of data and store the data securely. This has allowed the manufacturers and business owners to scale-up their operations in a cost-effective manner. Technologically, we have come a long way and now, most of our devices are designed to allow the collection of important data. This is achieved through the use of sensors and actuators that send data to the analytic systems, which, in turn, provide insights to important process indicators.

Transforming digital technologies

The process of data collection begins with the equipment on the production line, but it can also be aggregated with industry-wide cloud metadata. Business owners can gain valuable insights into new trends, which help them to combine closed-loop data with an industry-wide data perspective. This helps them to solve the crucial problems quickly and effectively and manage the network efficiently. A business enterprise that uses smart and connected equipments is able to share important data in real time with the operators and managers.

Why SD-WAN?

The number of internet users has grown gradually and so has the internet traffic. Controlling the WAN using the old methodology has now become difficult. As the IoT applications are mission-critical, the WAN network must be easy to control, reliable and safe. In order to do this successfully, manufacturers and business enterprises need to gain control of their WAN infrastructure. This can be done by making WANs smarter, through agile processes that are derived from intelligence at the network edge.

Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) uses a centralized system of control, which helps to address these problems. WANs that are automated with software and policy-driven orchestration helps to program the automated performance within the network. These performance metrics help to coordinate the hardware and software elements to support the applications and services. Thus, the method of policy-driven orchestration helps to bring greater intelligence to the network edge.

There are numerous indicators which allows to measure the performance and understand the optimization of the manufacturing process. As SD-WAN helps to get a better idea of the WAN network, the process indicators can be used to monitor and report the important issues in real time. These help to measure the effectiveness of the IoT applications when transferring the data from a manufacturing centre to a cloud computing system.

SD-WAN is becoming policy-driven and we are now able to understand whether or not the application delivery infrastructure is able to meet the strategic goals of the manufacturer. With data processing becoming centralized, one is sure to have greater cost efficiency and security in businesses and manufacturing procedures. Due to the onset of a responsive WAN edge infrastructure in place, it is possible to generate safer work-environments and bring consistency in the production process.