So what is SD-WAN exactly? Much like the "cloud", it can have different meanings to different people. Broadly speaking, SD-WAN is a generic term for a set of features that makes Internet connections a lot more useful. Let's take a real-life example of how SD-WAN could be used to solve a business problem. Let's say you have a VoIP phone system and all of your calls are made over the Internet. You also have one Internet connection which is great for browsing the web and checking email, maybe accessing an online service or two. Well what happens if you are on a phone call about to close a big sale, and the Internet goes down? Well the call gets dropped and so do you. SD-WAN could be used to ensure that your call continues even if your Internet goes down. Voodoo magic? Not really, but kinda.   The way SD-WAN allows your call to keep going is that it uses a second internet connection and simply reroutes your call using the other connection instead. It does this by intelligently monitoring both connections in real time and deciding which one is the best connection to use at any given point in time. You stay on the call and win the deal. Good job!   This is just one example of how SD-WAN is being used in businesses today. On a more conceptual level, SD-WAN takes the idea of using one or more Internet connections and applying some kind of software logic to them. Meraki does this by taking two Internet connections and grouping them together to form a new virtual connection. This is helpful because the new virtual connection is now independent of the underlying Internet providers. Just the way virtualization (think Hyper-V or VMWare) makes the underlying hardware irrelevant to the virtual machines, so SD-WAN does for Internet connections. Ultimately, as with many modern technologies, the actual magic of what happens and how this works is transparent to the end user. All they know and care about is that it works. As a technology professional, you can now deliver that to them as a powerful solution. Go, you! ... View more