Revolutionizing Manufacturing IT with Managed SD-WAN
What comes to your mind when you picture a manufacturing facility? Is it a large building billowing black smoke with manually operated machines inside? If so, that’s already outdated, as the manufacturing industry transformation has taken a giant leap thanks to technological innovations like autonomous assembly lines and advanced robotics. These innovations spread farther than the production floor and encompass the IT infrastructure, particularly with the integration of new networking solutions. One of the most significant advancements is the adoption of managed Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN). This innovative solution enhances connectivity across various locations while optimizing efficiency and security. Here, we’ll explore how managed solutions for SD-WAN can revolutionize modern manufacturing and deliver next-level efficiency and control.
Understanding Managed SD-WAN
For manufacturing supervisors and managers, understanding managed SD-WAN is key to knowing the oversight of manufacturing facility networks. Managed SD-WAN is a cloud-based networking technology that centralizes the management of a network’s connections. This virtual architecture allows businesses to use any combination of connectivity services—like broadband, MPLS, LTE—to securely connect users to applications. Unlike traditional WANs, SD-WAN separates the networking hardware from its control mechanism. This separation allows centralized control, improved traffic routing, and real-time application performance optimization.
For manufacturing companies with multiple plants in operation, distribution centers, and offices, this means better flexibility and visibility into network performance, allowing IT teams to manage network resources efficiently. This allows for quicker deployment of applications and services, which is vital in a manufacturing environment with interspersed offices and facilities.
Why Manufacturing Companies Need SD-WAN
Implementing a Central Network Strategy Across Multiple Locations
Manufacturing companies have varying, usually far-reaching operations that are not limited to a single area — some operate in different regions, countries, and even continents. Connecting these locations with traditional wide-area networks can be costly, complex, and inefficient. Managed SD-WAN uses a seamless extension of the WAN to multiple public clouds and connects through a virtual gateway hosted in the cloud. This innovative architecture offers a centralized control panel where IT teams can manage and monitor the entire network, regardless of geographic spread.
Enhanced Security for Industrial Systems
Manufacturers are increasingly adopting IoT, smart sensors, and connected machinery, making their operations more vulnerable to cyber threats. The automation in manufacturing operations also increases the number and types of devices connecting to multiple cloud environments, which can be a struggle for IT teams to monitor. Introducing a managed SD-WAN for manufacturing companies reduces the burden on their in-house IT team as the providers of this service take over day-to-day management, including monitoring network threats. This service also typically comes with built-in encryption, secure tunnels, and segmentation features that isolate critical systems, reducing the risk of lateral attacks across the network, ensuring everything runs smoothly.
Consistent Application Performance
From ERP systems and inventory tracking software to remote machinery monitoring and real-time collaboration tools, manufacturers depend heavily on application performance. SD-WAN automatically detects and prioritizes traffic based on the type of application, ensuring your most important tools always get the bandwidth they need—even during peak traffic periods, guaranteeing high availability. Plus, this proactive approach improves predictable service and user experience by minimizing downtime and ensuring the optimum performance of applications.
What Does a Managed SD-WAN Solution Improve?
Although SD-WAN brings tremendous potential to industries that embrace it, implementing and managing it internally more than doubles the workload of IT departments already focused on daily operations. That’s where “managed” services come in. A managed SD-WAN provider handles everything from configuration and deployment to maintenance, monitoring, management, and support. They act as an extension of your IT team, ensuring the SD-WAN infrastructure is always optimized, secure, and aligned with business needs. They also ensure that your WAN operates efficiently and securely, as they have service-level agreements (SLAs) with their clients stipulating the guarantee of minimum performance levels and response times.
Essentially, a managed SD-WAN approach ensures that your SD-WAN operation is maximized, and all its functionalities are properly utilized and maintained. The providers of this service have the expertise to roll out SD-WAN across all locations quickly and efficiently, ensuring faster deployment. Manufacturing companies and other industries also get 24/7 monitoring & support, as managed services include continuous network monitoring, performance tuning, and issue resolution. Managed SD-WAN providers also support scalability by expanding the network infrastructure with minimal disruption, so manufacturers can add a new plant or warehouse whenever they need to. Perhaps the best benefit is cost-effectiveness, as Managed SD-WAN reduces reliance on expensive Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) circuits and allows predictable monthly costs and improves operating expense.
Manufacturing companies looking to grow and diversify their operations need a reliable IT infrastructure that is flexible and scalable to meet changing demands. With Managed SD-WAN solutions, the opportunity to enhance operational agility, security, and performance is greater than ever. If your manufacturing company has not invested in a smarter network using Managed SD-WAN, it’s time to do so today — there’s no such thing as embracing innovation too early or too late. Whether you’re operating locally or globally, this managed service can be the backbone of a more connected, secure, and efficient operation.
