What is WAN Virtualization and How Will It Affect Your Organization?
The term “virtualization” has been historically used for describing technologies where a group of physical assets are intelligently managed by a software layer for a simpler, more efficient and better performing presentation of the resources to the higher layers. As an example server virtualization is the technology that describes the overlay software layer on top of many servers (or alternatively creating multiple virtual instances from a single server) that presents a simple interface to the applications that utilize it.
A similar concept has emerged in the WAN (Wide Area Networks) space, where an intelligence/management WAN virtualization layer (Broadband Bonding appliance) on top of the real WAN resources (DSL, Cable, T1, MPLS, etc.) will provide a simple, higher performance IP pipe to the applications that are using the Internet connectivity. With WAN virtualization (Broadband Bonding) various number of Internet lines can be bonded into a single connection. This provides faster connectivity (the sum of all the line speeds) as well as intelligent management of the latency within the tunnel. WAN Virtualization / Broadband Bonding is quickly becoming a must-have technology tool for any IT manager or business owner in today’s cloud-based (public and private) information technology business world we live in.
Here is an excerpt from a recent Network World article:
“We predict that managed services of this ilk, combining multiple connections from one or more service providers to create a single, faster, more robust virtual connection, will become commonplace–especially as enterprises increasingly rely on mission-critical applications in the cloud that must always be available and perform well.”
Cahit Akin, CEO, Mushroom Networks, Inc.
Mushroom Networks is the provider of SD-WAN (Software Defined WAN) and NFV solutions capable of Broadband Bonding that enables self-healing WAN networks that route around network problems such as latency, jitter and packet loss.