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January 2025 · 8 min read · All Articles
SD-WAN explained for business owners. What it is, how it works, who needs it and how it compares to MPLS. Includes cost comparison and use cases for multi-site businesses.
SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined Wide Area Network. The name sounds complicated but the concept is straightforward: it's technology that intelligently manages how data flows across multiple internet connections at different locations.
If you have one office, you probably don't need SD-WAN. If you have two or more sites — or if you're a single site business spending a lot on MPLS — read on.
Traditional multi-site networks use MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) — dedicated private circuits that connect your locations. MPLS is reliable but expensive: typically £300–£1,000+ per site per month, with long lead times and inflexible contracts.
As businesses moved more workloads to the cloud (Microsoft 365, Salesforce, cloud ERP), they hit a fundamental problem with MPLS: cloud traffic has to travel all the way back to the head office before going out to the internet, creating unnecessary delays called backhauling.
SD-WAN solves this by routing cloud traffic directly from each site to the internet, while keeping sensitive internal traffic on a private path.
An SD-WAN deployment typically works like this:
The result is better performance, lower cost and complete visibility across your entire network.
A typical 4-site business on MPLS might pay:
The same business on SD-WAN over broadband typically pays:
That's a saving of £1,000–£2,000 per month — while often achieving better performance on cloud applications.
You're a good candidate for SD-WAN if:
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MPLS is a private dedicated circuit between locations — expensive but reliable. SD-WAN uses standard internet connections (broadband, leased lines, 4G) managed by intelligent software that optimises routing in real time. SD-WAN typically costs 50-70% less than MPLS while providing equal or better performance for cloud-heavy businesses.
A typical SD-WAN rollout for a 3-4 site UK business takes 4–8 weeks from order to completion. This includes connectivity provisioning at each site, device configuration and testing. Telexico manages the entire project.
In most cases yes — especially for businesses that have already migrated their applications to the cloud. Telexico will assess your specific applications and traffic patterns before recommending a migration plan to ensure no performance degradation.
SD-WAN works over most business broadband connections. A 100Mbps symmetric connection per site is a good starting point for businesses with 20–50 users. Larger sites or data-intensive operations may need leased lines as the SD-WAN underlay.