What is the SaaS Enabled WAN?

In the past, businesses looking to buy applications would do so from software vendors – and delivered them to users over a business network from their own data centre. These networks usually consisted of MPLS WAN connections that ran between sites – connecting users through a QoS LAN. Using MPLS and QoS meant the in-house network administrators could prioritise the different business applications and data transmission across their sites.

But the internet brought about an evolution of this design. Suddenly, anyone could connect to anyone else. And because of this, mid-sized businesses limited their internet connections – using a single site with a firewall or an internet gateway. If they had other sites, their users accessed the internet using the WAN, which connected them to the gateway site.

As the internet became faster and faster, high speed bandwidth arrived – and a world of applications with rich functionality arrived with it. Multimedia like video streaming, high-res images, and chat, along with graphic screen sharing and video conferencing, all became a reality. Unfortunately, an increase in the costs of development, upgrades and deployment came too. Which made it a whole lot harder for small businesses to build their own app environments.

Until Software as a Service (or SaaS), that is. As the bandwidth speeds increased and the costs came down, developers had the chance to house their applications in a customized, up-to-date data centre – and then deliver the applications over the internet. It meant that all the infrastructure upgrading would happen at their end, cutting back on costs and complexity.

In the last few years, the move to applications delivered through SaaS has picked up more and more traction. Nearly all the key business applications can be operated under this model now, and smaller businesses can compete against their larger, established competition. All they need are their bright ideas.