INSIGHT Comms365
“In a cloud dominated user environment, the quality and reliability of the WAN to deliver application
Which SD-WAN model?
With organisations
needing to determine
how and why they
will deploy SD-WAN,
one of the challenges facing
service providers, multi-site
businesses and IT departments
is the ongoing role of MPLS
technology, recognising that
legacy WAN contracts may still
in place.
The opportunity to
implement a hybrid WAN
solution model incorporating
both MPLS and SD-WAN
provides the opportunity
for organisations to harness
the best attributes of both
technologies and begin a phased
migration process from MPLS
to SD-WAN now, as Nick
Sacke, Head IoT and Products,
Comms365 explains.
Why SD-WAN?
In a cloud dominated user
environment, the quality and
reliability of the WAN to
deliver application performance
has become an essential
component of IT infrastructure
design. The current consensus is
that traditional MPLS networks
struggle with the volume of
Internet-based cloud traffic, the
diversity of routing locations
(applications are delivered from
multiple clouds, not a single
datacentre), and ensuring
application performance across
both MPLS and Internetbearing
services.
The impact of this is an
increase in the number of
customers evaluating and
requesting SD-WAN solutions
from their service providers.
Indeed, it would be hard to find
an organisation today taking
the decision to go for traditional
MPLS without considering the
SD-WAN alternative.
The way in which
organisations decide to
deploy SD-WAN will be
key. Right now in the UK
performance has become an essential component of IT infrastructure design.”
Nick Sacke, Head of IoT and Products at Comms365
No company can ignore the speed with which SD-WAN is gaining traction or the
scale of innovation globally. With the market on the cusp of widespread adoption,
Nick Sacke, Head of IoT and Products at Comms365, explores the challenges that
businesses and IT providers are facing
it is the Managed SD-WAN
service model that dominates
the market, as experienced
MSPs can rapidly deploy the
solution with demonstrable
high performance and multiple
built-in capabilities from day
one, meaning that organisations
can reap the benefits almost
immediately.
In contrast to the Managed
Service where every aspect of
the service and all changes to
the parameters of that service
are undertaken by the MSP,
the alternative deployment
model is SD-WAN as a Service.
This approach, which has yet
to become widely available in
the UK, is gaining significant
interest in North America. This
software only model provides a
multi-tenanted infrastructure
set up that enables companies to
rapidly connect sites while also
providing the IT Manager with
the tools to monitor, manage
and change service parameters
as required.
A Hybrid Approach
SD-WAN has the potential to
be a replacement for MPLS, but
this is not necessarily the right
option for every organisation.
For a UK multi-site operation,
many of the sites could still
be in contract with months
or years still remaining – so a
replacement to SD-WAN would
be commercially challenging.
An alternative approach to
consider is to combine MPLS
and SD-WAN together as a
hybrid approach in order to
augment capacity, enable rapid
expansion, increase control to
IT managers and not having
to increase the overall MPLS
contract term for the addition
of a few sites – without a huge
financial outlay. By adopting
such an approach, the case for
complete replacement of MPLS
can then be considered longer
term without penalty.
Differentiating between
MSPs will be based on issues
such as access to a diversity
of connectivity options
and quality of service – for
example, does the MSP
support the need for agility
and flexibility, as well as future
proofing, by offering a network
agnostic SD-WAN?
SLAs will be key and,
over time, the managed SDWAN
services on offer will
undoubtedly become ever more
sophisticated as MSPs look to
exploit the intelligence within
the SD-WAN technology.
Traditional response times
are no longer good enough
in application centric
organisations, so it is important
to determine whether or not an
MSP is leveraging the software
only nature of SD-WANs
to overhaul its own support
operation.
Cost Consideration
In terms of service model,
the cost differential between
a Managed MPLS and a
Managed SD-WAN service are
negligible. The SD-WAN as a
Service model is significantly
cheaper – but it will require
additional internal resource, so
the operational cost comparison
will depend upon the existing IT
skill base and need to add heads
to manage the network .
48 | Comms Business Magazine | June 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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