ChannelVision Playbook 13

“The migration was surprisingly easy,” Shriver said. “Once the new cir- cuits were in place and the SilverPeak SD-WAN devices were set up correctly, we began testing connections by rout- ing specific hosts across them. Once we were satisfied that connectivity was complete and no sites were iso- lated, we scheduled a cutover for a Friday night. The migration consisted of changing some routes in our routing tables and then watching the traffic flow. After monitoring for a time, we discon- nected our old carriers routers and shipped them back in.” Results With the help of MNJ, Wachter was able to abandon its MPLS system entirely. “We feel that MPLS is a technology that may fit with certain industries or may be needed in very specific criteria, but we have no intention of moving back to it,” Shriver said. Switching to a managed SD-WAN solution designed, installed and monitored by MNJ Technologies has significantly reduced monthly costs as well as management overhead and downtime. Wachter has reduced monthly charges by 50 percent, saving about $200,000 per year. Plus, the company now has immedi- ate failover in place to protect against service disruptions. MNJ also has made life much easier for Wachter’s IT team, as it no longer needs to manually moni- tor circuits, or spend hours on trouble- shooting and carrier communications. MNJ has reduced the time it takes to provision new services and provides a consolidated monthly bill for all of Wachter’s sites. “A great deal of time was being spent with our MPLS trying to manage the product and the carrier,” added Shriver. “Due to its nature, many features such as a network-based firewall and security were baked into the product, which meant that we had to spend a lot of time trying to learn a system that was built to only al- low us whatever the carrier deemed to be needed by us. Now our engi- neers spend more time working on other projects or incidents rather than spending all of their time trying to fight with a limited system.” According to Shriver, though, the best part about working with MNJ is its detailed knowledge of his company. “Working with MNJ means having someone in our corner that not only understands our architecture and infra- structure but also our business culture and our needs,” Shriver said “With MNJ we know that our needs will be met, and we won’t be given a one-size-fits- all solution, but rather a tailored solution that works best for us.” o Watcher’s Carl Shriver channelvision@bekapublishing.com | 480-503-0770 OCT 26-27, 2020 SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA COMING fall 2020 MASTER ACADEMY A H I G H E R D E G R E E O F C H A N N E L S A L E S 30 THE CHANNEL MANAGER’S PLAYBOOK