If your organization connects branch offices with dedicated MPLS circuits, you're likely paying premium prices for a connectivity model that was designed before cloud applications existed. SD-WAN was built for the world your network actually operates in today.
What's Wrong With MPLS?
MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) delivers predictable, low-latency connectivity between sites - but it was designed for a world where applications lived in a central datacenter and traffic moved hub-and-spoke. Today, the majority of business traffic goes to Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and other SaaS/cloud applications. Backhauling all of that traffic through a central datacenter before it reaches the internet introduces unnecessary latency and costs you bandwidth on expensive circuits.
MPLS is also slow to provision (weeks to months), expensive relative to broadband, and inflexible when your network topology changes.
What SD-WAN Does Differently
Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) abstracts network connectivity from the underlying transport - letting you aggregate multiple circuits (broadband, LTE/5G, MPLS) into a single logical network, with intelligent traffic steering based on application type, link quality, and policy. Cloud-bound traffic goes directly to the internet from each branch. Business-critical traffic gets prioritized. VoIP packets stay off congested links.
Leading platforms include:
- Cisco Meraki MX - cloud-managed, excellent visibility, strong choice for organizations already in the Meraki ecosystem
- Palo Alto Prisma SD-WAN - security-first approach with deep integration into Palo Alto's SASE architecture
- Fortinet FortiGate SD-WAN - integrated SD-WAN + NGFW in a single appliance, strong price/performance for mid-market
- VMware/Broadcom VeloCloud - widely deployed in enterprise and large MSP environments
The Business Case
Most organizations that migrate from MPLS to SD-WAN see:
- 30-60% reduction in WAN costs by replacing expensive MPLS with broadband + SD-WAN
- Improved application performance for cloud services (Microsoft 365, video conferencing)
- Built-in redundancy via automatic failover between circuits
- Centralized visibility and policy management across all sites from a single dashboard
Important caveat: SD-WAN is a connectivity strategy, not a security strategy. An SD-WAN deployment without proper NGFW, IPS, and segmentation at each branch can actually increase your attack surface by giving each location direct internet access. The best SD-WAN deployments are designed alongside your security architecture - not as a separate project.
SummitCore has designed and deployed SD-WAN environments for multi-location businesses across Southern California. If you're approaching a WAN refresh or just want to understand your options, schedule a conversation - we'll give you an honest assessment of whether SD-WAN makes sense for your topology and traffic profile.