Improve Network Performance with UCaaS and SD-WAN
A master craftsman understands that each of his tools serves a specific purpose, and coaches know that their athletes achieve great things when working toward a common goal. Organizations that have adopted unified communications as a service (UCaaS) could benefit from this perspective by tapping into the synergy between UCaaS and software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN)
Small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses around the globe and across many industries now rely on managed UCaaS to deliver cloud-enabled communications and collaboration capabilities. Whether it’s a single office or a series of facilities scattered—or work form home (WFH), UCaaS enables voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), instant messaging, collaboration, phones, contact center, and other applications to streamline workflows.
UCaaS can also be easily scaled for growth, allowing firms to add branches and applications to their platforms as needed.
(This article is compliments of ATC provider, CBTS. ATC was CBTS’ 2019 partner of the year. Reserve your seat for our SD-WAN discussion coming up May 28th with CBTS’ Matt Douglas.)
At the same time, other businesses are moving away from traditional multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) networks and toward more cloud-friendly SD-WAN solutions. With SD-WAN, routing distant remote locations to their central cloud solutions is simple and efficient, while presenting less of an outage risk than traditional MPLS networks. On their own, these technologies provide substantial benefits to retailers, manufacturers, and a wide variety of enterprises and verticals. However, finding synergy between the two solutions could be the secret to unlocking the full potential of both.
UCaaS Powered by SD-WAN: A Winning Team
Like two critical components of a well-oiled machine, UCaaS and SD-WAN solutions are capable of working in tandem to bring out the best in any organization that deploys them together. While UCaaS platforms can tie together disparate members of a team and give them the tools to collaborate effectively, SD-WAN systems provide the bandwidth, processing power, and stability to keep the entire operation running smoothly.
One example of this is how SD-WAN, when used in conjunction with UCaaS, can greatly enhance the quality of any voice and video conferencing programs through the use of strong cloud connections. This process has the added benefit of combining voice, video, and text messaging applications into a single, dedicated platform.
For any business that views voice functionality as mission-critical, including but not limited to retailers and call centers, every call that drops or doesn’t connect means lost revenue. That means a reliable connection is a must-have in these cases. Hosted UCaaS gives these enterprises a redundant and robust connection that enables collaboration across locations and is also flexible enough to fill new roles as the business evolves. The addition of SD-WAN can enable unified communications to operate at peak performance.
With UCaaS and SD-WAN working together, businesses with global footprints benefit from the dependable communications they need, with the added benefits of faster speeds and increased bandwidth. Additionally, cloud-based UCaaS presents cost reductions over older on-site solutions. When SD-WAN is introduced to the landscape, the savings are amplified thanks to SD-WAN’s reliable connections minimizing costly downtime and dropped calls.
