The way we consume services has changed, with cloud-based applications like voice and video becoming ever critical in the working day. New business needs and market trends have also contributed to increased bandwidth requirements and more reliance on network availability and quality.
With organisations evolving at pace, digital transformation is at the centre of everything you do. But that transformation is only possible with secure and agile connectivity providing the backbone for your communications.
SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) solutions are the key to enhanced wide area network (WAN) connectivity, providing access to critical business applications, services, and resources while facilitating remote work from anywhere with an internet connection.
Our Managed SD-WAN Services deliver agility and security for your business through a virtual network layer on top of any IP connectivity method. This means you can benefit from additional scalability, virtualisation, and speed, while supporting digital transformation and cloud adoption objectives.
Key features
Access agnostic
Embrace various access methods for cost-effective connectivity.
Application visibility
Gain granular insights for smart decision-making and enhanced network performance.
Application-aware routing
Constantly optimise traffic for a consistent user experience.
Multi-path load balancing
Maximise your branch speeds and WAN investment.
Centralised management
Simplify network changes and reduce human error.
Virtualised SD-WAN appliances
Deploy in public clouds for top-tier performance.
Co-management
Self-service network configuration changes for faster end user productivity impacting changes.
Intelligent Connected Cloud (ICC)
Nasstar’s ICC service offering has been designed to align with all the SD-WAN technologies we deploy, providing you with a cloud-first connectivity framework that future-proofs your IT environment.
Intelligent Connected Cloud (ICC) optimises the user experience with high-speed connectivity, guaranteed availability, and an integrated security fabric. With ICC, you can embrace cloud adoption and migration more effectively, with a robust and dedicated connectivity fabric that allows optimal transformation in your organisation.
Pat Rodgers
Managed Networks Product Manager at Nasstar
"Connectivity is often thought of as ‘just internet access’ but when SD-WAN technology is overlayed it’s a key enabler for many business activities, including cloud adoption and digital transformation. At Nasstar, we understand the key role that connectivity plays in building the foundation for our Managed SD-WAN solution, ensuring your business is ready for what the future brings, both in terms of business-critical application and cloud services."
Related Services/Solutions
When considered as an enabler, connectivity solutions like SD-WAN can integrate seamlessly with the tools, applications, and technologies your business relies on every day. For consistent and reliable use, there are a few key solutions that rely on a robust networking capability like SD-WAN.
Connectivity
Whether your sites demand high bandwidth, highly available, redundant ethernet connectivity, or low cost but high performance FTTP connections, or even wireless connectivity, Nasstar’s unique range of connectivity partners means we can source the right connectivity for you, right across the UK.
Business Ethernet services
When it comes to business connectivity, every organisation can benefit from faster speed and a more reliable connection. That’s where Business Ethernet connectivity can help. It offers plentiful bandwidth, with symmetric upload and download speeds of up to 10 Gbps and the high availability and stringent SLAs a business needs.
Nasstar partners with all the UK’s leading Ethernet carriers to offer a range of Ethernet services, from single links to multi-supplier and guaranteed diverse dual-Ethernet services. Through our range of connectivity partners, we make sure each of your sites gets the best value connectivity, finding the local on-net provider for each of your sites.
Business broadband
Whether remote workers need reliable, always-on access to the internet or cloud, your smaller sites or retail stores need a more cost-effective private network, or you want to add lower cost bandwidth to enable SD-WAN services, our business broadband solutions can provide the connectivity back to our ICC core network, enabling you to connect efficiently and transform your organisation.
We can future-proof your broadband estate too, from superfast Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) services with speeds up to 1 Gbps to SOGEA and MPF services that bridge the gap between BT’s 2027 PSTN switch-off and nationwide full-fibre availability.
Wireless connectivity
Sometimes you need connectivity to a site quickly. Other times, it might not be cost-effective or practical to run a cable into your premises. For these scenarios our range of flexible wireless solutions allow you to connect back into your network and access services using a range of 4G, 5G and satellite connectivity services.
Our expertise
Having worked in the networking and connectivity industry for over 25 years, we’ve played a key role in many SD-WAN deployments. Our Managed SD-WAN solutions help organisations to confidently and securely support more latency-sensitive business-critical applications and cloud services.
Our security-driven networking approach provides access to core applications with advanced reporting that identifies what data is entering and leaving at the application level. This means we can deliver an optimal mix of best-of-breed security and SD-WAN functionality.
At Nasstar, we only partner with the best providers in the business. We have a 15+ year partnership with cyber security leader Fortinet, an in-house team with over 200 Fortinet certifications, and the coveted Fortinet SD-WAN specialisation, ensuring our efficiency and reliability in SD-WAN projects is unmatched.
We also offer extensive support services, extending well beyond deployment. We can provide you with dedicated assistance to tackle any adoption challenges, and we’re available 24/7 to ensure your connectivity continues to support your application experience. With Nasstar as your SD-WAN provider, the network and your business are ready for whatever’s next.
Why choose Nasstar?
Choosing Nasstar for SD-WAN connectivity means gaining access to significant expertise and experience in connectivity and network management, as well as a reputable partner that works with leaders like Fortinet and Cisco in the cyber security space. We have supported many customers with SD-WAN solutions, either standalone or with our unique ICC offering.
As SD-WAN providers, our teams can help you:
- Reduce downtime and achieve a seamless end user experience of the network
- Elevate your connectivity with flexible and scalable business-grade network solutions
- Upgrade any form of connectivity with advanced security and application optimisation
- Make informed network improvement decisions that deliver business outcomes
- Deliver advanced reporting and management with our self-service cloud-based dashboard
- Configure and manage your network to meet industry compliance requirements
At Nasstar, we pride ourselves on tackling the complexities, inflexibility, and security challenges that are slowing down innovation. We’ll help you drive business growth, increase agility, future-proof your connectivity, and enable greater digital transformation across your entire organisation.
Years Fortinet Partner
Fully managed SD-WAN service
Unique Intelligent Connected Cloud offering
In-house Fortinet certifications
Support
Dedicated team of SD-WAN experts
FAQs
SD-WAN stands for ‘Software-Defined Wide Area Network’ and it is the process of using software to securely connect users to applications. It lets businesses connect and extend enterprise networks that are geographically dispersed, for example remote teams. SD-WAN uses a centralised control function to direct traffic across the WAN, resulting in greater application performance and an enhanced user experience.
SD-WAN solutions can solve business challenges that occur when using traditional WANs. These include poor public network performance, network complexity, and MPLS limitations.
SD-WAN improves public network performance by using dynamic path selections to route traffic down the best available path ensuring the most reliable connections are reserved for critical traffic. The simplicity of SD-WANs also means businesses have better control over complex networks so they can respond to changing demands and scale accordingly.
In traditional WANs, multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) is a key component, but it doesn’t offer an efficient way to connect to various public cloud services. SD-WAN solves this problem by acting as part of a hybrid-WAN connection. Businesses can send business-critical applications through MPLS and everything else over direct internet connections, utilising SD-WAN's policy-based management and dynamic path selection capabilities.
Businesses going through change can benefit from SD-WAN due to the flexibility and scalability of the solution. SD-WAN is ideal for customers going through digital transformations, migrating to the cloud, growing (particularly through acquisitions), or customers rapidly adopting new business operations.
SD-WAN providers allow businesses to demand more from their network infrastructure investment. Through application visibility and controls, SD-WAN solutions can utilise multiple connectivity paths and restrict applications that are not part of your business operations.
If end user productivity is most important for your business, SD-WAN solutions can improve Quality of Experience (QoE) for end users when collaborating across an SD-WAN network.
SD-WAN offers many benefits for businesses of all sizes. Many organisations are moving to SD-WAN to gain additional bandwidth while making cost savings. Another key reason for adopting SD-WAN is to future-proof your connectivity with a flexible, secure, and scalable solution. By decoupling network software services from underlying hardware, SD-WAN creates a virtualised network overlay that enhances performance while offering simplicity and seamless connectivity.
SD-WAN providers such as Nasstar can help you understand why SD-WAN might be a good choice for your business. Some of the other benefits of SD-WAN include:
- Improved end user application performance
- A Network architecture designed for dynamic multi-cloud strategy
- Enhanced network agility
- Quick deployment
- Maximised connectivity investment
Managed SD-WAN services are different from traditional WAN services in several ways. Firstly, WAN is entirely hardware-based, while SD-WAN is software-based. While both can technically be classed as managed WANs in most cases, SD-WAN offers greater flexibility, more efficient traffic management, and increased visibility into network and application performance.
SD-WAN is increasingly being used by businesses seeking to scale their connectivity and make cost efficiencies. With SD-WANs, it’s much easier and quicker to add a new branch, through automated configuration push from the central management platform
Customers with SD-WAN can do more with the bandwidth they have by load balancing traffic across multiple connectivity paths regardless of the connectivity medium. For example, Ethernet, broadband, mobile, and satellite connectivity can be aggregated to use all paid for connectivity while ensuring connectivity resilience.
SD-WAN’s centralised, policy-based management allows for minimal travel to sites for setup and configuration changes, driving deployment and operational costs savings.
