These days, companies of every size are increasingly depending on cloud apps and services like Office 365 to make their business work. For most, they are simple to procure, quick to set up and easy to use, especially if you’re working outside of the standard office and IT infrastructure.
But as many have already realized, their performance is often limited by the legacy wide area (WAN) network(s) on which they run. That’s because cloud apps and services like Office 365 move data outside of the traditional network perimeter. With legacy WANs that use costly MPLS connections and backhaul traffic through centralized datacenters, these connections are subject to latency from things like packet inspection, network hairpins, inadvertent connections to geographically distant endpoints, and other delaying factors.
In comparison, modern software-defined WANs (or SD-WANs) use inexpensive Internet connections to route SaaS traffic directly from remote locations, thereby providing more throughput, enhanced reliability and lower connectivity costs. Even better, they can identify your Office 365 traffic and route it to the nearest Microsoft front door to deliver up to five times faster uploads and up to 10 times faster downloads of data. That’ll make your users happy.
So what makes Citrix SD-WAN different than all the rest? In addition to the performance advantages offered by other SD-WANs, Citrix also combines packet-level, real-time path selection, firewall, routing and application analytics into a single solution. So whether accessing virtual desktops, a traditional data center, or SaaS applications such as Office 365, you’ll be able to deliver an optimal user experience across your branch locations.
There’s more. Citrix is also a Microsoft Virtual WAN preferred partner. That means Citrix SD-WAN serves as a default cloud on-ramp to Azure’s global network and regional data centers—accelerating cloud-based delivery of applications to branch offices worldwide via optimized routes. By integrating with Azure Virtual WAN, Citrix SD-WAN delivers high performance, simple scalability, and reliability, allowing you to:
In short, to take advantage of today’s modern apps and services, you need a network that’s up to the challenge. To learn more about how Citrix SD-WAN and Microsoft Virtual WAN can deliver the future-ready network you need now, check out this e-book.