Due to the pandemic, all schools—primary, secondary, college, and university—have been compelled to rely on online education. The great majority of educational institutions have begun the new school year with either online training alone or a hybrid approach that combines both classroom and online components.

Even before the pandemic, online education was growing increasingly essential since it provided easier access to specialized education programs and enabled instruction that was individually suited to the student. Yet, acquiring a great education online is not possible without a modern network.

Traditional wide area networks (WAN) may be unable to fulfill the need for adequate bandwidth faced by K–12 and university education. In addition to its many other advantages, software-defined wide area networks (SD WAN) may overcome the challenges provided by remote learning programs.

What Is SD-WAN?

SD-WAN refers to “software-defined wide area network.” It is a networking technology that uses “software-defined networking,” or SDN to control and improve the performance of wide area networks. It enables businesses connect people, apps, and data from many different places in a secure way. It also improves network performance, reliability, and scalability. SD-WAN simplifies the management of wide area networks (WANs) by providing centralized control and visibility throughout the whole network.

What Are the Advantages of SD-WAN in Education?

Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) technology is particularly suited for usage in medium- or small-scale educational institutions since it allows access to all of the benefits of a large network without incurring exorbitantly high expenditures. SD-WAN offers several benefits to large educational institutions that have branch offices in various parts of the world.

• Optimized Connectivity

SD-WAN makes sure that the network is always running at its best, so outages and data loss are less likely to happen. SD-WAN helps educational institutions make the most of their available bandwidth.

SD-WAN provides the reliability and availability that educational institutions need. It offers a connection with low latency. Application load sharing, link balancing, and link failover are three different procedures that, when coupled, enable online classes to run continuously.

• Efficient Management

For educational institutions, network administration is not a main priority. The time spent on management and maintenance chores is time that might be devoted to developing new ways to use technology in education and administration. The educational system necessitates a solution that is simple to adopt and maintain.

An SD-WAN may be deployed in a matter of hours, as opposed to weeks or months for a traditional WAN. Many functions, such as network alarms and analytics reporting, are automated. Even when several campuses and endpoints are connected, SD-WAN orchestration allows educational organizations to have comprehensive visibility throughout their networks.

• Increased Security

It is the responsibility of schools to protect the personal information of their students that is kept in electronic school records. Colleges and universities are required to safeguard not just their students’ and instructors’ intellectual property, but also the data generated by research activities.

SD-WAN has many security features built in that protect both the network and the data it moves. By using intrusion detection, bad traffic can be stopped and unauthorized people can’t get access to student information. Educators can also control how kids in grades K–12 use their devices with SD-WAN. The kids can only access relevant websites and apps.

• Agility

One way that SD-WAN helps educational systems be more agile is by allowing them to manage several services at the same time. This is feasible since SD-WAN “aggregates management in a single place, regardless of where it originates.” It seems to be a single network and may be managed as such, reducing the amount of “human power” required to manage many components.

• Simplicity

School districts with more than one campus can’t always use a single network provider for all of their networking needs. Because of their location, certain providers or services may be inaccessible at specific campuses. SD-WAN solutions simplify school networks by allowing instructors and staff to connect with any service accessible over the network, regardless of its location or source.

Conclusion

There has never been a more critical period in history for the usage of online schools and training programs than now. When someone can get training or take classes online rather than traveling to a physical location, they may learn more in a shorter length of time, allowing them to become more informed. As a result, generally many businesses take advantage of the opportunities that are offered to them. SD-WAN technology makes it easier for businesses to supply and capitalize on the opportunities afforded by online services.