Citrix SD-WAN vs VMware SD-WAN comparison

Citrix SD-WAN is a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), WAN optimization, and WAN edge solution. Citrix SD-WAN is recognized for providing a robust, trustworthy user experience so that an organization's distributed workforce can deliver the best possible outcomes at all times. Organizations can easily deploy solid security protocols wherever needed and also have the option to choose from a diverse choice of security options with unified security service and seamless integration with today’s top next-gen firewalls.

Citrix SD-WAN provides a single cloud-based user dashboard that enables organizations to easily manage their WAN, prioritize and audit applications, and configure security protocols. Citrix SD-WAN enables users to easily manage hybrid multi-cloud processes by improving applications and automating connectivity. Citrix SD-WAN gives organizations tremendous flexibility for deployment from public clouds, data centers, home offices, and branches.

Citrix SD-WAN is the basis of the Citrix consolidated process to SASE (secure access service edge) combined with cloud-delivered security and zero-trust network access to provide organizations with safe, trustworthy, secure access to each and every application anywhere, using any device.

The Citrix SD-WAN solution is made up of three basic components:

• Two software editions.
• Cloud-hosted (or on-premises) orchestrator for clear visibility and unified protocol management.
• Appliances: data center, home, branch, physical or virtual.

Citrix SD-WAN Orchestrator

The Citrix SD-WAN Orchestrator can be on premises or cloud-hosted and is a multi-tenant management service offered to Citrix partners and do-it-yourself enterprise organizations. The dashboard delivers a comprehensive view of your organization’s SD-WAN network concerning the functionality and usage of every site. The intuitive dashboard delivers a summary of uptime of the overlay and underlay paths, usage trends, and network-wide alerts.

Available application-centric policies: quality of service (QoS), firewall policies, and application-based traffic steering can all be easily configurable globally or per site.

Reviews from Real Users

“With SD-WAN, they have all the features and benefits they need to send live streaming information to the database and to headquarters without requiring a server at each site. Our other clients have various sites with just one type of communication, say a radio or a mobile network. SD-WAN helps them to combine and get a better bandwidth to balance all their applications and services.” - Business Consultant at a tech services company

“We needed to create some kind of network that was distributed through data and media or big files. It was a retail company, so there were branches, and the branches needed to connect to HQ. We provided HQ and each branch with Citrix SD-WAN. We tried to use it, and it worked well. The transmission was good, and they were losing less data.” - Ruslan M., SMB Sales Director, Regional Business Development Department at Softline

VMware Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is a secure access service edge (SASE) platform that combines many types of software-based network technologies in an attempt to enable users to virtualize their wide area networks and reduce their reliance on hardware. In essence, this solution makes it possible for users to reliably access their applications from anywhere in the world by leveraging cloud technologies. Users can simply, efficiently, and completely control their network devices and traffic. It ensures that organizations are always able to use the best possible connection to their data centers. VMware SD-WAN steers traffic so that it is always using the most reliable connections and at the same time takes steps to remediate any problems that it detects in other network links. This guarantees that organizations can access high-priority applications at all times. 

VMware SD-WAN Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by deploying VMware SD-WAN include:

• Reduced cost of network management. Organizations that choose to employ VMware SD-WAN can manage their network at a cost that is 2.5 times less expensive than what it costs to use traditional WAN architectures. Its ability to both augment existing hardware and replace said hardware if the user chooses to do so is part of what enables users to reduce their overhead costs. 

• Ease of deployment. VMware SD-WAN makes it possible for organizations to deploy it without having to rely on the assistance of technical experts. When the device - whether virtual or otherwise - is connected to the internet, it integrates with a central orchestrator that pushes the correct integrations to the device in question. This automates the installation process and makes it so that anybody can initiate and follow the deployment through to the end of the process. 

• Easily segment networks to improve environmental performance. Users can divide their networks into multiple segments that share a single IP address. These networks can be incorporated into an organization’s IT infrastructure and enable it to run more reliably. One way it does this is by providing multiple potential channels for data to use to travel in the event that one of the data pathways is suffering from some kind of issue. 

VMware SD-WAN Features

• Centralized monitoring. VMware SD-WAN is monitored at all times by a centralized orchestrator. From one place, an organization can watch every part of its network. Instead of having to search for the data they need, it can all be found in one location.

• Integration capabilities. VMware SD-WAN offers users the capability to integrate their network with the environment of their choosing. This enables them to connect their network to the IT environment that best meets their needs. It makes it easy for them to work with multi-cloud and hybrid environments.

• Real-time data analytics. VMware SD-WAN can analyze network data in real time. This makes it easy for users to monitor their network’s performance. It also allows them to take steps to quickly remediate any issues that arise before they can become worse.

Reviews from Real Users

VMware SD-WAN is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its ability to automate the process of creating and maintaining a virtual local area network and its intuitive user dashboard.

Sami I., principal cloud architect at Loihe, writes, “One of the solution's most valuable features is the VMware core automation stack at an SDDC. It includes NSX, the VMware virtualization layer for the networks (the LAN virtualization), which works extremely well with the VMware SD-WAN solution and is the primary advantage over all the others. None of the other vendors could integrate with the virtual LAN, making it quite complicated and virtualized to be fully automated.”

Chih S., senior technical consultant at a tech services company,  says, “The product has a very good user dashboard that is simple to navigate.”