So, you’ve decided to upgrade your telecom to SD-WAN. You’ve made the right choice, but that’s not the only choice you have to make. Your company is unique and software-defined networking does not have a one -size-fits-all solution. In the words of Drew Peterson, the CEO of FirstDigital, “businesses have varying telecommunications needs and it takes a variety of products to meet those expectations.” You already know that SD-WAN will improve your workplace’s wide area network. Now let’s get to know its architectures.
WAN has come a long way since the implementation of the Cloud—the capabilities of traditional WAN just aren’t enough for a modern, growing business. One helpful way to categorize all this new WAN technology is to think of each architecture in relation to “two axes” on a graph, as demonstrated by this helpful visual from the VeloCloud site. The horizontal axis goes from point product solutions (which fix a single problem rather than addressing all the requirements) to a comprehensive offering. The vertical axis goes from the outdated on-premise system to advanced cloud-based architecture.
The older architectures are on-premise, single-function and point-product. These systems perform best in a hub-and-spoke network and they offer highly optimized traffic delivery to a company’s data center. However, they do not allow easy cloud integration. The “middle mile” approach links your provider’s core network to your local core, but network performance suffers. Some newer pure-play technology can give you centralized policy and VPN simplification, but even these options have a difficult time with cloud integration. The only way to get all the benefits and business value of SD-WAN is with cloud-delivered architecture. Cloud-delivered SD-WAN is flexible, secure and elegant.
In order to pick the system and provider that will best suit your business and your team, consider your company’s unique needs against the capabilities of each one. Do you value simplicity? Scalability? Customization? Maybe you care most about integrated applications, quick performance, network security and stability. Also, take cost and customer service into account when you shop around. Our preferred architecture is the VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN.
No matter what kind of WAN you choose—don’t make decisions in the dark. Put your local technology vendors to the test with this RFI (Request for Information).