Unified Communications (UC) and UC as a Service (UCaaS) enhance team collaboration with a mix of real-time communication and messaging tools, namely voice, video conferencing, and screen-sharing.
While beneficial to the business, UC’s networking requirements challenge WAN transformation initiatives. Voice and video require minimal latency and packet loss. Outages and slow-downs in the network become readily apparent to anyone in the middle of a voice or video call.
Moving UC to the cloud with UC-as-a-Service (UCaaS), such as RingCentral, 8×8, Fuze, and Skype, poses further complications, requiring predictable, low-latency cloud access from any branch location.
Broadband Internet connections, such as DSL and cable, provide the affordable bandwidth and rapid-deployment needed by WAN transformation initiatives. But alone they fail to address all of the factors that can degrade the Quality of Experience (QoE) of UC and UCaaS.
A global SD-WAN service with converged security provides the reach, performance, and protection enterprises require for UC and UCaaS.
ICG SD-WAN is the perfect complement to any UC or UCaaS deployment. SD-WAN improves uptime and eliminates the common causes of packet loss and latency that undermine UC and UCaaS QoE.
Appliance-based SD-WANs only prioritize upstream traffic. They typically include Active/Active Protection for aggregating capacity and blackouts protection. Policy-based Routing (PbR) selects the optimum path for UC sessions. Packet mitigation techniques may be available.
ICG QoS prioritizes upstream and downstream last-mile access. Active/Active Protection and PbR aggregate capacity, protect against not only blackouts but also brownouts and select the optimum path. Packet Duplication and Fast Packet Recovery mitigate last-mile packet loss.
SD-WAN appliances rely on the unpredictable Internet. They cannot compensate for the latency from poor Internet routing or the packet loss caused by congested peering points.
ICG avoids Internet problems by using the ICG SD-WAN network, a private, global, network of PoPs built on top of multiple SLA-backed tier-1 carriers. Optimized routing algorithms direct UC traffic across the paths with the least latency and packet loss.
SD-WAN appliances do not provide UCaaS access out-of-the-box. Organizations must first identify the location of their UCaaS provider and somehow deploy an appliance near the provider’s premises.
ICG natively supports UCaaS and cloud datacenters (IaaS) without additional configuration, complexity, or point solutions. ICG intelligently drops UCaaS traffic at the ICG Point of Presence (PoP) closest to the UCaaS instance across the globe to minimize latency and packet loss.
SD-WAN appliances require additional security appliance and services to protect against network attacks and Internet threats.
ICG's converged security stack protects UC components against network attacks and Internet-borne threats without the need for dedicated appliances or additional security services.
SD-WAN can reduce your WAN costs but will it keep that voice calls clear? Find out in our next webinar, as noted unified communications and collaboration expert, Irwin Lazar, will examine the SD-WAN considerations for maximizing your UC/UCaaS experience.
Face to face or over Zoom, we are here to help you.