So, in an industry in desperate need of regulation, we’ll let you capitalise on our two decades of network industry experience and SD-WAN knowledge and explain, in simple terms exactly what to look for when choosing the best SD-WAN provider for your business. And, when an “SD-WAN” simply isn’t an SD-WAN.
SD-WAN trends, facts and stats
SD-Wan is causing a buzz among most IT professionals, and for good reason. SD-WAN is fast becoming the network of choice as more and more companies begin to understand the technology and the advantages that SD-WAN delivers, particularly as CLOUD computing becomes the norm. With 85% of IT teams across the country looking into SD-WAN, it’s easy to demonstrate it’s growing popularity. With leading industry analysts publishing figures that the SD-WAN industry will be worth anything between £4Bn and £8Bn by 2023 it’s easier to see why every Telco, MSP, re-seller, channel partner and agent wants a piece of the action for their customers. Whilst competition is always healthy, there is a downside to the explosive SD-WAN demand –the trend to slap the SD-WAN label on any product or service that is even remotely related to SD-WAN.
Although basic SD-WAN technology was born way back in 2008, by 2016 only 1% of companies had implemented an SD-WAN network and not very many people knew much about the technology. Early SD-WAN adopters have proved the technology and interest in SD-WAN has snowballed over the last 18 months. There are now around 50 bigger SD-WAN providers globally, and competition is booming.
When is “SD-WAN” not SD-WAN?
There are plenty of examples of mis-selling and mis-information to be found online and in product brochures of Telco providers and channel partners of all sizes, even the very top players. I believe that this is due to suppliers, agents and distributors haste in climbing on the SD-WAN bandwagon without the necessary experience, technical ability and fundamental understanding of SDWAN technology.
Many solutions offer a very cut down version of a true SD-WAN solution, but still call themselves SD-WAN. Load sharing must not be confused or replaced with load balancing, bonding or failover. Yes, a true SD-WAN solution will usually perform all three to some extent but must also simultaneously include additional essential (and expected) SD-WAN functionality.
Load balancing is not SD-WAN, bonding is not SD-WAN, failover is not SD-WAN – period!
The key components of an SD-WAN must include:
By combining Gartner’s 4 key SD-WAN components (the industry’s only current SD-WAN guideline) , the very minimum that an SD-WAN solution should be:
A simple replacement for traditional WAN routers, be WAN transport agnostic (i.e. supports MPLS, Internet, 4G, ADSL LTE) and can physically terminate circuits, while load sharing traffic across multiple WAN circuits based on business or application policy. Additionally, SD-WAN must remove complexity associated with management, configuration and orchestration of WANs, while providing secure VPN and have the ability to integrate additional network services i.e. security.
To be clearer, a true SD-WAN must dynamically and intelligently share the packets of a session, mid-flow (without dropping the session / call) across multiple WAN links, according to defined policies and without the need for manual change or intervention and must be managed by a central control point.
How to choose an SD-WAN provider
All SD-WAN technologies differ, have different functionality and solve different problems. Comparing apples with apples is not straightforward when faced with so many varieties. Even when we have set and defined industry standards (coming 2019), we will still have blurred lines. SD-WAN technologies should be rated or “scored” against each other using the same parameters around technical ability, cost and performance, so that you know exactly what your solution will and won’t do.
At SDWAN Solutions we have developed core functionality, performance and cost scoring systems to help us align an SDWAN vendor technology to your unique business needs. Base core functionality parameters scored include:
- zero touch provisioning
- dynamic traffic steering and dynamic path switching
- per flow load balancing
- per packet load balancing
- multiple link packet duplication
- segmentation network slicing
- auto detect application connection (1000+ only)
- link aggregation
- data encryption AES256
- FEC (where relevant) and finally,
- unidirectional measurement and steering (different upload and download paths).
How SD-WAN providers rate against each other
Using the SDWAN Solutions scoring system on solutions by SD-WAN technology vendors like Velocloud, Talari, Aryaka, Cloudgenix, Silverpeak, Viptela etc, most vendors in the global top 10 score 90% – 100% in our core functionality test. These vendors qualify as true SD-WAN players – no wannabes here!
The majority of Tier 1 Telcos have partnered with true SD-WAN vendors above to offer SD-WAN solutions to their customer bases and so their solutions are also true SD-WAN solutions, although using the connectivity from a single provider does take away some of the cost / flexibility /performance benefit of SD-WAN in its ability to use the best connectivity options at a specific location.
When looking at vendors from traditional WAN optimisation or security backgrounds, the SD-WAN functionality starts to dilute. Nokia/Nuage and Juniper score around 70% while Riverbed comes in at 60% – just over half the functionality of true SD-WAN. Fortinet has not been rated in this exercise, but early indications are that they will score similarly to Riverbed.
Our scoring system identifies solutions that are strong overall but also highlights their strengths in specific areas, rated according to the importance of the core functionality to your business. This allows us to correctly advise on the best SD-WAN technology – specific to you.
Direct customers must arm themselves with as much SD-WAN product and technical knowledge as possible, or team up with an experienced SD-WAN expert. Your existing MPLS provider may not be that expert!
Need SD-WAN advice?
SDWAN Solutions are trusted experts in all things SD-WAN, and work with many of the top global SD-WAN vendors, local SD-WAN providers and thousands of telecoms companies globally to offer complete SD-WAN solutions.
With SDWAN Solutions on your side, you don’t need to be an expert in emerging network technologies. You don’t need to spend months researching and meeting with dozens of suppliers. We’ve done the hard work for you – we’ve pushed the technologies to the limits and selected only the best in class SD-WAN vendors to work with.
Helping you design, test, implement, install and manage your next SD-WAN network. Helping you chose the best SD-WAN for your business. Technology made easy to understand. Technology made easy for you
Anthony Senter
CEO, SDWAN Solutions
Anthony is the CEO and founder of SDWAN Solutions Ltd, and a director of SDWAN Solutions SRL. Anthony has over 22 years network industry experience gained from working for most of the global Tier 1 carriers. He was an early advocate of SDWAN technology and is one of the leading authorities in SD-WAN and one of only 12 SD-WAN Subject Matter Experts, globally