Steinwurf’s next-gen FECs aren’t a choice for SD-WAN, they’re an imperative.
Introduction:
As businesses move away from networking solutions like MPLS (based on leased lines) towards SD-WAN, they face new challenges when it comes to network performance.
The continued transition to remote working during and after the pandemic, coupled with growing competition for bandwidth across wide area networks from increasingly disparate locations, makes network efficiency all the more important, particularly for latency-sensitive applications within wide area networks, like video calling, real-time document collaboration or even trading within financial institutions.
This means that SD-WAN companies need to simultaneously minimize latency and maximize reliability – as a consequence, continued use of ARQ or traditional block ECC/FEC solutions won’t deliver the performance required.
So why the need for next-gen FECs?
With all of this said, the reliability of SD-WAN connectivity is pivotal to all of the above. One of a few reasons that SD-WAN has not been fully adopted yet is because many businesses are still using reliable legacy systems because the downtime caused by switching isn’t feasible.
In addition, while SD-WANs make it easier for an organisation to connect to the cloud, they need to be available to multiple end users at any given time. However, with that comes heavy network traffic, which then often results in poor performance.
Similarly, with workforces based in increasingly disparate locations as a result of the pandemic, the network needs to cope with many different connections all with varying strengths and stress factors – this is often what leads to packet loss and latency, resulting in a poor or sometimes terrible user experience.
This is why next-gen erasure coding solutions like our Rely product are so imperative. Older solutions using solely ARQ fail when network latency increases because there is no time for retransmissions. Similarly block ECC/FEC also fail if the traffic being generated doesn’t exactly match the designated configuration, resulting in a number of packets receiving no or delayed protection.
Next-generation FECs like Rely are imperative to the long-term success of SD-WAN
Through the use of Random Linear Network Coding, Rely effectively reduces packet loss up to a 100 fold – packets are encoded on delivery from the source along with repair packets that can then be decoded by the receiver and used to replace any missing packets in milliseconds, with minimal impact on latency.
It’s use of sliding window coding means that network performance and stress levels aren’t an issue either. Rely can dynamically be recalibrated to increase or decrease the number of repair packets being created and encoded based on defined latency bounds and how much stress is being placed on the network at any given time.As we’ve seen through our collaboration with Barracuda, next-gen FECs give SD-WAN providers an immense advantage. By virtually guaranteeing network performance by reducing the risk of latency through packet loss, they can be confident that their service will deliver what it needs to, when it is needed, with any latency constraints set by the WAN.
This can then improve user experience significantly with only a minute cost to bandwidth usage, and barely imperceptible CPU usage owing to hardware acceleration on x86 and ARM platforms, which in turn keeps the wheels of the businesses using SD-WAN products turning smoothly, and makes network controllers’ tasks considerably easier.
A range of potential improvements
The case for using next-gen FECs within SD-WANs is clear – it delivers reliability within a certain latency bound that will safeguard performance and user experience. This has the potential to drastically improve the quality of a range of applications that work across networks; video conferencing, real-time information sharing, even gaming across a network within an eSports environment, just to name a few.
While the use of these products may seem complex, implementation is simple, and works within a multitude of environments and variables with a very high degree of customisation based on specific scenarios. If you’re looking for an easy and effective way to improve the quality of your SD-WAN products, a solution like Rely is ideal.
To learn more about how Steinwurf’s low latency FEC solutions can give your SD-WAN offering a cutting edge, get in touch on contact@steinwurf.com to get access to our free sandbox and explore the difference it could make for you.