president of global channels at Aryaka Networks. “This scenario presents a significant opportunity for channel partners, as many businesses may need to reinforce their in-house IT capabilities with third-party experts to handle SASE deployments.” Active partners within Aryaka’s channel program rose 34 percent in North America year over year, said the company, and the North American channel pipeline increased 113 percent, boosting channel sales performance. Aryaka also recently announced one of the biggest SASE deals in the company’s history, which was initiated by IT consulting firm and Aryaka partner Spearhead Advisors. The service agreement with Hong Kong-based airline and luxury travel brand Cathay represented one of the first adoptions of SASE within the aviation industry and provided Aryaka an entry into this large and potentially lucrative market segment. The deal included converged networking, security and observability across Cathay’s more than 150 global locations and a rapidly increasing number of users and devices. The deal also included fully managed services and last-mile circuits from Aryaka to provide Cathay with a true end-to-end managed solution. Entering the process, Cathay was looking to streamline and modernize an existing network infrastructure made up of a patchwork of many solutions and components. “More specifically, they wanted to replace their dated MPLS network and firewall technologies,” said Phil Mullinax, strategic sales director at Aryaka Networks. According to Travis O’Keefe, senior consultant at Spearhead Advisors, the airline had two primary objectives. “First, they wanted to get the full costperformance benefit of an SD-WAN platform,” he recalled. “Second, they wanted to collapse their security into a single platform and set of policies.” Some IT challenges the company was seeking to mitigate included coding new offices quickly, delivering reliable internet access and managing and securing cloud workloads across AWS and Azure applications. Cathay brought in Spearhead Advisors to support the modernization effort and lead the sourcing engagement. (Incidentally, Spearhead Advisors was introduced to the opportunity through a software consultant it trades referrals with.) Spearhead engaged in a forensic assessment of the airline’s needs, analyzed its goals and requirements, created the RFP and evaluated proposals from eight global providers and aggregators. “We met with Cathay’s procurement and IT project teams and explained how we would approach sourcing for the project – from understanding their current state, goals and requirements to finding the correct mix of suppliers to meet those requirements,” O’Keefe explained. “After reviewing our proposal, we agreed to a statement of work to manage the RFP process.” All told, the RFP process took 14 months, and while a 14-month engagement process is nothing new to Spearhead Advisors, Cathay has a “very disciplined methodology for vendor assessment,” said Michael Brennan, a senior consultant at Spearhead Advisors. “It starts in the sourcing phase and continues through the project implementation phase and quarterly measurements in the production phase. We incorporated their methodology into the RFP,” said Brennan. “We typically initiate strategic engagements at the leadership level to ensure that projects are in harmony with our client’s long-term vision, strategy and desired outcomes,” he added. Despite Cathay’s limited familiarity with the networking company, Aryaka was invited to participate in the RFP process due largely to its established presence and extensive experience conducting business within China, said Brennan, as well its unique ability to provide an end-to-end managed solution. “Furthermore, Aryaka’s role as a disruptor or challenger to the conventional, traditional platform and carrier model contributed to its inclusion in the selection process,” added Brennan. Throughout the RFP process, Aryaka’s team was “exceptionally responsive and flexible,” recalled O’Keefe, making multiple site visits and conducting virtual and physical proofs of concept to validate its capabilities. “They did a great job in the proof of concept. That was a big feather in their cap,” said O’Keefe. “They did a physical proof of concept, which is surprising; typically, you do a virtual one. They handled the inevitable problems that happened very well and fixed issues very quickly.” Ultimately, said O’Keefe, “they outshined the competition with their ability to thread the needle between expertise and ease of doing business.” Aryaka’s robust global middle mile network also proved a key differentiator. As part of a unified SASE solution, Cathay wanted a middle-mile component to ensure low latency, predictability and an improved user experience – in other words, true SD-WAN with true quality of service. “That eliminated most of the other vendors,” said Mullinax. “Cathay also asked for compression and data dedupe in the middle mile to maximize throughput,” he continued. “Aryaka has a patented solution for that, which put us over the top.” With the agreement officially signed back in September, the testing phase has begun and was expected to continue through January. Phase one of the deployment will take six to eight months, with phase two expected to follow a similar timeline. Moving forward, Spearhead is on the calls as part of the Cathay “internal” team and will assist in keeping the project on track. If new components or pricing are required, Aryaka works with Spearhead directly. “The role of trusted advisor can be vital in achieving a successful SASE rollout and ensuring its ongoing efficiency,” said Aryaka’s Patterson. “As a result, SASE enablement, especially when serving clients with limited IT expertise, presents a valuable niche for IT consultants and partner firms.” o VIRTUAL REALITIES 30 CHANNELVISION | JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2024
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