MARKET REPORT SD-WAN
“WAN solutions always require a consultative pitch, however with SD-WAN in your portfolio, it is even more
important to focus on discovery of the customer’s requirements before defining and delivering any solution.”
Justin Fielder, CTO at Zen
approach may be outside
the remit of many partners
especially if it involves
changing business models
within the strategy.
Sacke commented, “ e
pitch for partners is to look
at the hybrid opportunity in
addition to full replacement.
e approach rst should
be about understanding
the application tra c ows
between sites and the cloud,
and then applying SD-WAN
selectively for agility, expansion,
aggregating multiple types
of connections at ‘problem’
or high value sites, ensuring
that the network can balance
and route the user application
ows correctly for a quality
of experience. For example,
non-business applications are
segregated at sites into the
broadband access links but
mission-critical applications can
still ride on the MPLS backbone.
However, for brand new
multi-site networks, such as
small retail setups which require
a network that is more agile
and can ex in di erent ways
– SD-WAN may be an ideal
solution. erefore, partners
must endeavour to understand
the customer needs and business
plans; how many sites are in
operation, the application ows
and the plans for expansion of
those applications over the term.”
Fielder added, “WAN
solutions always require a
consultative pitch, however with
SD-WAN in your portfolio, it
is even more important to focus
on discovery of the customer’s
requirements before de ning
DRIVERS FOR SD-WAN?
According to an IDG Connect study of over 339 IT decision makers
• Automated, on demand provisioning of network capacity to connected
sites (27%)
• Support for ongoing migration of applications and data to public cloud
services like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure (26%)
• Improved network availability, resilience and uptime (24%)
and delivering any solution. First
establish what the customer
is hoping to achieve, what
locations, networks, services,
software, hardware and human
resource they have now, and
where they expect to go in the
future. Demonstrating an
understanding of customer
requirements and the capability
to satisfy them is essential,
and this means establishing
credibility across a wide range
of technologies, and of course
a supportive network service
provider can help where expertise
is lacking.”
Senter commented, “Two of
the largest multi-million pound
channel partners that we work
with are struggling as their
business models and current sta
cannot mould to the changes
required to o er SD-WAN
solutions. One is working with
us to nd a workable way around
while the other has stuck its head
in the sand, unfortunately to the
detriment of their customers. I
wonder which one will come out
on top in the long run?
We are in an era where your
customer might know more
about SD-WAN than you do.
SD-WAN adoption in the UK
is being requested by C-level
directors and fed down the chain.
You need to be able to pitch
SD-WAN to the board, to the
IT department and to the FD.
ese are di erent conversations
but you need to be consistent in
your messaging, consultative and
honest in your advice.”
Wayne Mason, sales director,
Advanced Networking – EMEA
at Nuvias commented “We are
seeing a lot of consolidation as
major players such as Cisco,
Oracle and VMware acquire SDWAN
companies to accelerate
their route to market. Telcos,
aware of the threat to their MPLS
business, are also doing deals
to o er SD-WAN as a service.
But smaller resellers can leverage
trusted advisor relationships with
their customers to navigate the
SD-WAN mine eld and use
innovative network performance
monitoring technologies from
companies such as Juniper,
Riverbed and Sinefa to help make
the right SD-WAN decisions,
based on intelligent network
visibility and analysis. When
a partner is competing against
a ‘titan’, o ering a network
performance service is a strong
di erentiator. While some
organisations will jump straight
into SD-WAN, for many there
will be a transition period where
they migrate to a best-of-both
hybrid model and hold on to
their MPLS networks.”
ED SAYS…
SD-WAN is a beast not to be ignored right now. You can bet your customers are
already looking into how they can leverage the technology in order to save money. Be
careful as claims of 90% savings over MPLS have been thrown about in the market
(particularly in the US). Whilst cost savings could be a benefi t, the sheer effi ciencies
the technology can bring to businesses are what really makes the proposition stand
out. Take some time to choose a provider as standards are only just starting to come
in, this means there are still providers out there using clever marketing tricks and
hype with not much substance behind them to get you on-board.
Nick Sacke, Head of IoT, Comms365 with hybrid SD-WAN / MPLS
and pure Internet SD-WAN
networks. At SDWAN Solutions
we see customers initially wanting
to retain some of the existing
MPLS infrastructure to main
sites, but also replacing smaller
or “expensive” sites with pure
SD-WAN. MPLS bandwidths
are bolstered by Internet services
making new MPLS sites or even
MPLS upgrades to existing sites
essentially non-existent. Some
customers drop MPLS circuits
totally once the services are out of
contract as SD-WAN has proved
itself in the eld.
Cost saving is a major
consideration for any new
network SD-WAN network. is
is where we di er from the US. In
the UK, MPLS is sold at only a
very slight premium so customers
can a ord to retain MPLS but
grow and expand with SD-WAN.
Soft cost savings with SD-WAN
by far outweigh traditional hard
costs. It is questionable however
when providers discount existing
MPLS services by over 75%
when faced with an SD-WAN
alternative. It is in these cases
that customers cannot allow
their FD to make a network
technology decision based purely
on presented costs. MPLS was
not designed to access cloud
applications and the actual
network cost is not only the cost
of the circuits and routers.”
Channel Pitch
For Channel Partners looking to
delve into the world of SD-WAN
how can they ensure they get
the pitch right? Selling this type
of technology in a consultative
26 | Comms Business Magazine | February 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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