The Manhole Fire That Changed Everything: When SD-WAN Solutions Became a Strategic Imperative

I remember exactly where I was—sitting at my desk as the CIO of a regional bank in Central Pennsylvania—when the call came in. A manhole fire in Philadelphia had taken down 90% of our MPLS network.

The only remaining circuit was our connection to our core provider from our operations center. Every branch was offline. Even our so-called “backup” circuits, provided by the same vendor, were down.

Our team was pushed to the limit. Through grit, creativity, and considerable manual effort, we kept the bank running and balanced by the end of the day. But that moment was a wake-up call. Redundancy wasn’t real. Flexibility was nonexistent. And the cost of failure—both operational and reputational—was far too high.

That’s when I knew something had to change.

I needed a solution that could deliver:

• Increased redundancy

• Greater agility and flexibility

• Simplified network management

• Enhanced security

• Equal or lower total cost of ownership

That’s when I began exploring Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) solutions—not as a buzzword, but as a strategic shift.

Understanding SD-WAN Benefits

The benefits of adding SD-WAN solutions touch every layer of your IT infrastructure. With more than 70% of enterprise workloads migrating outside traditional data centers, SD-WAN solutions are proving their value. By adopting this technology, you can move your business from a vendor-dependent MPLS model to a commodity-based internet structure.

Cost Reduction & Efficiency

SD-WAN architecture reduces your connectivity expenses by leveraging more affordable internet broadband and LTE connections. This approach replaces costly MPLS circuits, potentially resulting in lower overall costs without sacrificing performance.

In addition to saving money, SD-WAN architecture offers substantial operational benefits. It provides increased bandwidth by allowing your organization to use multiple connections simultaneously. Furthermore, centralized management and automation features can decrease your operational expenses and IT overhead by reducing the need for time-consuming manual configuration.

Performance & Reliability

SD-WAN solutions enhance network reliability and application performance through application-aware routing. This feature intelligently identifies specific applications and directs their traffic over the most optimal path in real-time by factoring in current network conditions and defined policies.

Furthermore, it delivers direct cloud access by enabling secure, efficient connections to major cloud services, such as AWS and Cisco, and various SaaS applications. This eliminates the inefficiencies of traditional backhauling traffic to a central data center.

In addition to intelligent routing, SD-WAN is designed to ensure maximum business uptime. It provides automatic failover capabilities, which are important for maintaining continuity. If an active network link fails, the system instantly and automatically reroutes traffic to an available connection, minimizing downtime and helping your critical business operations remain online.

Security

One of the key SD-WAN benefits is its integrated security. Many SD-WAN solutions include built-in security features, such as next-generation firewalls and encryption, which create a consistent security posture that extends across the entire network.

Security policies are also no longer managed on separate devices. Instead, they are enforced from a single, central console. This simplifies the admin by maintaining consistent policies across all your sites and enhancing visibility into network threats and activity.

Management & Agility

Centralized management is the core functional benefit of SD-WAN, offering a unified point of control for the entire network. IT teams can configure, monitor, and troubleshoot everything from a single console, simplifying the process compared to managing dozens of individual devices.

This central control leads directly to increased agility. The system’s virtualized infrastructure enables rapid response to business needs. You can quickly add new sites, scale bandwidth to handle peak loads, and deploy new applications in minutes, eliminating the weeks of manual effort traditional WANs required.

How to Approach an SD-WAN Migration

A successful MPLS to SD-WAN transition is a strategic migration, not just a device swap. To minimize disruption, start with an in-depth network assessment to benchmark current traffic, bandwidth, and MPLS performance against future needs.

This process defines the optimal SD-WAN architecture for your business, ensuring it meets both high-speed needs, such as large data transfers at warehouses, and key security needs, like secure direct cloud access at small branches.

The migration proceeds using a phased rollout. You start with a proof of concept at a few non-critical locations to test the solution, validate security policies, and refine routing rules before moving to full-scale deployment.

The final sequence prioritizes smaller branches first, then medium sites, and concludes with mission-critical centers. This process helps your team feel comfortable with the system, allowing a seamless integration, and making sure all performance goals are met business-wide.

Potential SD-WAN Challenges & Mitigation

Though SD-WAN offers significant benefits, migration presents several challenges that require consideration and planning.

When you’re starting your migration, security becomes decentralized. Shifting from a centralized WAN that inspected all backhauled traffic to an architecture that permits direct internet access from the branch exposes the network to greater risk. Mitigation requires integrating strong security features, such as NGFW and encryption, or adopting a Secure Access Service Edge framework, which unifies networking and cloud security.

So What Did We Do?

We transitioned from a fragile, vendor-dependent MPLS model to a robust, commodity-based internet architecture. By leveraging multiple carriers, we dramatically increased both throughput and redundancy, making sure a single outage couldn’t cripple our operations again.

At key locations, we retained business-class circuits to support mission-critical functions, striking the right balance between performance and cost. Meanwhile, our move to a distributed security model provided enhanced protection, granular visibility, and improved reporting across the network.

In the end, the results spoke for themselves:

• Drastically improved end-user experience

• Greater agility and operational flexibility

• Enhanced security posture

Plus, we were able to solve our problem at a lower price point than the old system.

How Can Veritium Help You?

We believe in control without compromise. Veritium Cloud Networks gives you the benefits of a managed service, with the flexibility, control, and ownership you would have if you managed it yourself.

The traditional MSP model doesn’t work for everyone, so we fixed it. We eliminated common barriers like front-loaded consulting fees for the pilot phase and created a transparent billing system where you only pay for your actual Cloud usage.

We’ve been in your seat and know what challenges you’re facing. Our founders are former CIOs and have come through the IT department. That’s why we’re here to help you succeed, not give you a system and leave. Let’s explore how we can help your business grow together.

Start Your SD-WAN Switch

Hi, I'm Clair.

Founder & CRO at Veritium

I'm glad you're here reading. With decades of experience in IT leadership and systems engineering from companies like Dell EMC and Centric Bank, I'm passionate about leveraging technology to help businesses grow, particularly in their Cloud environments. The IT Department isn't a cost center. It's a strategic partner, and my goal is to help you empower IT to fuel your success.

Get to Know Our Team