SD-WAN vs. MPLS: when it makes sense to migrate
For many years, MPLS was the default choice for connecting corporate sites with predictability and guaranteed quality of service. That has not changed technically — but the context around it has changed a lot.
Signs it is time to consider SD-WAN
- Dedicated-circuit cost growing faster than the IT budget.
- Critical applications moving to the cloud, making the "everything goes through the central data center" model inefficient.
- The need to bring a new site online in days, not months.
- Security teams asking for visibility and centralized policies that plain MPLS does not natively provide.
When MPLS still makes sense
Environments with strict regulatory latency and availability requirements, or operations with large-scale jitter-sensitive voice and data traffic, still benefit from the predictability of a dedicated circuit. The answer is rarely "all or nothing": in many cases the path is a hybrid model, with MPLS kept for critical traffic and SD-WAN taking over the rest.
How to decide
The starting point is not technology, it is inventory: map every site, its current circuits, the cost per site and the criticality of the applications running over them. Only then does the technical conversation about SD-WAN make sense.