Jul/Aug 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

virtual reality How Much Control is Required? There are many features SD-WAN offers, and the amount of control a customer requires for each can be a factor when they’re deciding to build in-house or outsource. For example, with traffic prioritization, companies can create very specific topologies tailored to their unique needs. Take a financial services company for instance and the required policies they have for security and performance. Realistically, all their financial transactions should never go through the public internet, especially the banking transactions on the backend, which should only go through secure MPLS transport. There- fore, policies need to exist that follow their rules from an application and se- curity perspective. In this case, the lev- el of granularity required is likely only available by managing the SD-WAN in-house or through additional profes- sional services offered by an MSP. Or, what about multi-cloud support? Most SD-WAN vendors support some kind of cloud connect. Cisco definitely does. And that’s pretty important be- cause every enterprise has a footprint in AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. Or- ganizations dealing with this scenario need it to be easy, and if they have a data center, they may need it to interoperate with the cloud. Whether an organization builds internally or outsources to an MSP, whenever traffic comes out of the SD-WAN fabric, they still need to monitor it. And organizations also value other additional features such as ease-of-use, centralized management, reporting and security. All need to be evaluated based on the requirements of their business. For example, the MSP route for SD-WAN will be an ease-of-use slam dunk for a smaller business but could be less appealing for a larger company that requires high levels of control, specifically for application per- formance or for security reasons such as the financial use case. It’s an exciting time for SD-WAN, as vendors and service providers bring new features and technologies to market that help companies take advantage of the many business benefits it has to offer. As customers increasingly come to the table with questions and concerns about the best way to adopt the technology, hopefully the above information gives you some insight into the challenges and mindset of organizations consid- ering a new SD-WAN deployment. o John Smith is co-founder and CTO at LiveAction. W at do you consider the k y st rting poin s of your digital transformation, whether it has started yet or not? Source: Accenture Shifting from a legacy approach to emerging digital technologies. Positioning ourselves for the next generation of partners and customers. Achieving executive buy-in on our digital i itiatives. Becoming acknowledged by our customers as a digital brand. We have not considered what would be a key starting point for digital transformation. Other 59% 47% 34% 22% 6% 1% C D Challenges Associated with SD-WAN Adoption Source: IDG, Masergy Int Cost concerns Concerns about the skills needed to implement/manage Concerns about interoperability with existing WANs Resistance from within IT Lack of interest or support from final purchase decision-makers None Other May-19 Jul-17 56% 51% 46% 48% 43% 51% 30% 21% 25% 27% 6% 3% 2% 5% cloud and on - premises deployments included Budget OpEx Predictably : pay for services via monthly subscription , and add more when you choose , without contract change Trasition to the cloud your way : build on your existing deployment Protect your technology investment : extend and add services at your own pace Drive future adoption and growth : only pay for what they need today Get employees up and running quickly : 43 July - August, 2019 | Channel Vision