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It is another term, such as VoIP
and WebRTC, which people are mis-
taking for a product. It is a technology.
We have hit the point where our
daily reliance on cloud computing ap-
plications and platforms has broken
the enterprise MPLS. So much traffic
goes out the Internet pipe that, in com-
parison, the traffic inside the private
network is small.
We have transitioned to Office365,
Google for Work, Salesforce and a host
of other SaaS offerings. We have mi-
grated business software to Azure, AWS,
Rackspace and other IaaS and PaaS
systems. All the traffic that used to stay
within the walls of the enterprise network
(the MPLS) has now left the network.
Enterprise networks now require
direct connections to Azure, AWS and
other computing platforms for secure
application performance. If we reduce
application lag on the often-used apps,
employees are more productive and
less frustrated. Application acceleration
is just one function that is inside the
SD-WAN umbrella these days.
WAN optimization that Riverbed
was known for is now an SD-WAN
function. Load balancing and circuit
bonding are now under the umbrella.
Monitoring and analytics are the intelli-
gence that is needed for the IT admin-
istrator. This new transparency into the
WAN will be a bellwhether.
Another function in the SD-WAN
bucket is quality of service packet shift-
ing, which will come in handy for many.
As offices require bigger bandwidth at
rural, remote and branch offices, where
bandwidth may be at a premium or un-
available from more than one provider,
circuit bonding will be standard on an
SD-WAN white box deployment.
With monitoring and analytics lay-
ered on top of QoS routing, the CPE will
determine which path is best for real-
time packets such as VoIP and video.
If a branch office can only get a DSL
circuit, they can add a 4G card and per-
haps fixed wireless (if available). These
circuits can be bonded to look like a big
pipe by the white box the provider sends
out with the SD-WAN deployment. The
best path for packets can be determined
and switched in real time.
Analytics and monitoring mean that
the SD-WAN box will act like a cop on
cable modems, DSL circuits, 4G cards
and fixed wireless. If those circuits
have congestion, we will know. If those
circuits are unusable, we will know.
If these circuits are blocking VoIP ports,
the SD-WAN box will pick it up.
Take all of that together and not only
does the branch office or remote site
get failover from having two broadband
pipes, it gets a traffic cop. This traffic
cop will also be the SLA killer. Right
now, unless we pay attention, there isn’t
a way to know when a circuit is out of
SLA (the service level agreement). Yet
with monitoring and transparency, we
will know when the circuit is out of SLA.
Then we can hold the provider to it.
It won’t be fun for the network op-
erators that like to over-subscribe or
not worry about throughput. Soon they
will have to worry. One cable company
was caught by the state of New York
charging for big pipes that they sold
but actually delivering less than half of
the promised speed. Soon the user will
have a measurement and reporting tool.
There are some available now, but with
SD-WAN, that white box CPE will be
performing many services and views.
The network operators have already
installed SDN to power the SD-WAN
offerings that they are currently testing.
The umbrella for SD-WAN is covering
many functions now, making the term
murky, similar to unified communica-
tions. It holds great promise for the alter-
native providers, the former CLECs, that
could be the leaders in SLAs and being
traffic cops.
o
Peter Radizeski, president of
RAD-INFO INC, started as a VAR, then
became an agent. Now he writes about
the channel and the telecom space
while consulting to service providers and
occasionally still selling some circuits.
Other Implications of SD-WAN
Cable Cop and
the SLA Killer
By
Peter
Radizeski
D
espite all the hype, we are in
the very early days of SD-WAN.
You’ve heard of it, SD-WAN, the
term that stands for software-defined
wide area network.
Virtual Realities
18
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March - April, 2017