FatPipe SD-WAN | FatPipe Networks Blog

How FatPipe SD-WAN Adapts to the Evolving Needs of Branch Offices

The best networks aren’t the ones that are only the fastest, but are the ones that adjust the quickest.

With businesses spread across multiple countries or even continents, branch offices’ role in daily operations cannot be underestimated. The hard reality in the modern digital landscape is that if these branches are not equipped with a solution that adapts to their growing needs, they will suffer from performance issues which will have major consequences.

FatPipe SD-WAN: Adapting to the Evolving Needs of Branch Offices

With FatPipe SD-WAN, critical applications such as video conferencing or financial transactions can be prioritized to run over MPLS or high-speed fiber, while less demanding traffic can be routed over cost-effective broadband or 4G/5G connections. FatPipe SD-WAN ensures that each data packet takes the optimal path across the network, regardless of whether it’s traveling to the cloud, another branch office, or the main office.
Branch offices struggle with challenges related to session continuity and failover. Traditional networks are prone to disruptions during link failures, resulting in dropped connections, terminated sessions, and productivity loss. FatPipe SD-WAN solves this by offering stateful failover and session resiliency, meaning that if one link fails (for example, a fiber line or MPLS circuit), FatPipe will automatically reroute traffic over a secondary link (such as broadband or 4G/5G) without disrupting ongoing sessions.
FatPipe has the unique ability of data transmission across lines without dynamic routing protocols using FatPipe MPSec ^TM that makes network lighter, simpler, faster and more secure. Please refer to our Intelligent WAN Edge blog for more details.
FatPipe SD-WAN uses a threshold-based approach to monitor the quality of each selected line. It keeps tab on latency, jitter, and packet loss. If any of these exceed the thresholds, the traffic can be moved to another WAN connection to maintain optimal performance.
FatPipe SD-WAN accomplishes failover so gracefully; existing sessions continue on the original WAN interface while only new sessions are established on the failed-over connection.
In remote branch office areas, where high-speed connections like fiber may not be available, FatPipe SD-WAN optimizes available links such as satellite or cellular connections. It ensures efficient bandwidth utilization, dynamically switching between links to maintain the best possible performance, even in regions with unreliable connectivity.
Central management of FatPipe SD-WAN simplifies network operations, ensures higher performance and security, and reduces costs for branch offices while making it easier to scale and maintain consistency across all locations.
FatPipe SD-WAN ensures lower TCO with the feature of true load balancing of links without traffic duplication and single IP framework that have potential to save up to 60% of network bandwidth.

FatPipe SD-WAN allows branch offices to leverage any available connectivity—whether broadband, satellite, or MPLS—and integrates them seamlessly into the overall corporate network. Also, it ensures that security remains a top priority. The virtual network overlay can integrate advanced security features like encryption, traffic segmentation, and Zero Trust models, protecting sensitive data across all branch locations.

FatPipe SD-WAN addresses the performance issues inherent in long-distance interconnectivity reliably and efficiently. This ability of FatPipe SD-WAN to adapt quickly to varying needs, rather than just relying on sheer speed, is what makes it so effective for branch offices’ evolving demands.

How FatPipe SD-WAN Reduces Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of Network Infrastructure

Several enterprises, even now, rely on standard WAN and SD-WAN offerings that generate high CAPEX and OPEX costs. This poses a high risk; the expenses for maintaining legacy WAN systems will eventually surpass the investment required for a modern, business-aligned network solution. Companies witness around 20-30% cost reduction when they switch to the SD-WAN solution (according to reports) but embracing FatPipe software-defined approach reduces Network TCO by more than 50% ensuring FatPipe SD-WAN investment break even for customers in less than one year.

Industry Unique Features of FatPipe for SD-WAN Investment Break Even in less than one year

FatPipe being the inventor of key SD-WAN features has patented and innovative ways of network transformation for reducing network TCO.

Single IP Framework for Link Aggregation – FatPipe MPVPN patented technology aggregates traffic of heterogeneous last mile e.g. MPLS, Internet, broadband, LTE, 5G, wireless, leased lines, and satellite in end-to-end single IP framework enabling traffic navigation across multi- technology links. This traffic load balancing can reduce per annum customer bandwidth costs by 20-30%.
Load Balancing without Traffic Duplication – FatPipe SD-WAN MPSEC ^TM patent ensures no duplication of traffic among redundant lines during data, voice and video to ensure customer bandwidth savings up to 50% year on year.
WAN Optimization – Reduces TCO through advanced WAN optimization techniques namely caching, compression, de-duplication etc. FatPipe WAN optimization is at an innovative byte level, ensuring industry-best traffic optimization granularity. These features reduce bandwidth costs between 10% and 90% depending on payload application nature.
Selective Encryption – FatPipe’s patented hybrid WAN technology selectively encrypts only the traffic placed on public links, avoiding encryption on MPLS traffic. This feature reduces encryption overheads ensuring potential bandwidth savings by 30% depending on packet size.
Intelligent Traffic Management and Prioritization – This feature optimizes the utilization of available bandwidth reducing the need for over-provisioning and ensuring that critical applications receive the necessary resources to save excess bandwidth costs by 10% to 20%.
Unifying Heterogeneous Devices – FatPipe SD-WAN has the capability of working as router, stateful/next-gen firewall, Intrusion Detection and Prevention system, load balancer, unified threat manager, WAN optimizer, DNS, and DHCP as well as provides best-of-breed network performance and fault management system functionalities. This combination saves customer hardware TCO by about 10% to 30%.

Combination of these features during solution design phase leads to significant reduction in customer network costs by more than 50% and also provides better network availability, impregnable security, accelerated WAN traffic, and enhanced user experience for increased organization productivity.