INTERVIEW Todd Kiehn - GTT Communications
“For companies considering investing inSD-WAN, there are several factors to consider when deciding if the
technology is a good fit” Todd Kiehn, VP Product Management – GTT Communications
The New Networking
Approach: SD-WAN
SD-WAN’s popularity stems
from its innovative approach
to network management,
providing enhanced control,
visibility, and performance while
improving bandwidth eciency
and reducing bandwidth costs.
Unlike a traditional router,
an SD-WAN service combines
hardware and software at the
customer premises with a central
network intelligence function
that understands the performance
of applications over all available
connections at all sites. e device
interprets the trac being sent
and uses dynamic path routing to
ensure that this trac reaches its
destination with the appropriate
priority. A great example of this in
action can be seen at Europac.
Europac, one of the most
innovative manufacturers
of sustainable packaging in
Europe, uses GTT SD-WAN
to connect its 18 paper and
packaging factories and six
waste management facilities
and in doing so, the company
has been able to streamline its
operations and processes across
the entire value chain of the
packaging industry. is enables
Europac to manage change in
its manufacturing operations
– a real competitive advantage.
SD-WAN adds exibility and
allows Europac to optimise
its network to support cloud
based applications, which is
a fundamental aspect of the
company’s digital strategy.
As IT and applications today
are often hosted in dierent
geographies to their users,
SD-WAN is helping make the
network simpler to congure and
control centrally. Making the
routing software dened allows
As organisations adopt cloud services, enterprise networking has become an
increasingly complex challenge. Moving to the cloud provides greater agility,
scalability and flexibility for networking environments. However, as Todd Kiehn, VP
Product Management at GTT Communications explains, networking technology has
adapted to face these challenges and offer a solution, SD-WAN
the underlying network, and they
rely on the IT sta to select the
right network access solutions.
Furthermore, IT sta members
usually need considerable help
in understanding how to adopt
SD-WAN technology to suit their
enterprise’s environment and
business priorities. Enterprises also
need to be aware that the end-toend
control and predictability of
their mission-critical applications
is much more dicult to achieve
with internet service providers
that cannot oer ecient, lowlatency
internet access to their
cloud or Software-as-a-Service
provider. On the other hand,
opting to have a network service
provider manage the service
can ensure delivery of the core
network, ecient internet access,
and multiple access options — all
aligning to the specic missioncritical
application requirements
of the business enterprise.
Second, while it is important
to carefully consider cost savings
when evaluating an SD-WAN
solution, a company should avoid
thinking of SD-WAN as just a
connectivity service for reducing
costs. It is much more than that.
e evaluation process should
also consider all the other benets
of an SD-WAN solution from the
standpoint of simplied network
management and improved
application performance, which
will translate into real business
value across the enterprise.
Todd Kiehn, VP Product Management – GTT Communications
network control to be separated
from the underlying hardware,
improving exibility and enabling
enterprises to customise more
of the IT estate to suit their
business requirements. SD-WAN
allows implementation of a new
approach to supporting global
locations, including the ability
to manage multiple types of
connections (from private VPNs
to locally sourced internet), as
well as application of business
policies to manage applications
and security from a central
resource.
Finding the perfect match
Due to its potential to improve
overall business performance
and eciency, SD-WAN has
also captivated the interest of
the C-suite. For companies
considering investing inSDWAN,
there are several factors
to consider when deciding if the
technology is a good t.
First, it’s important to
understand the maturity level,
skill, and experience of the
enterprise IT team, and map this
to the level of support needed
from the service provider when
migrating from an early trial stage
of deployment to a full production
environment. Pure-play SD-WAN
vendors will oer impressive
technology, but they don’t provide
42 | Comms Business Magazine | July 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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