Why should enterprises choose SD-WAN?

While MPLS still dominates the WAN market, no enterprise can ignore the speed at which SD-WAN (Software Defined WAN) is gaining traction or innovating at scale around the world. With Gartner currently tracking 60 SD-WAN vendors – a six-fold increase between 2017-2018 – WAN decisions are rapidly evolving from “MPLS vs. SD-WAN” to “Which SD-WAN?”

As the market widely adopts SD-WAN, enterprises need to determine how and why to deploy SD-WAN. One of the challenges facing service providers, multi-site businesses and IT departments is the continued role of MPLS technology, recognizing that traditional WAN contracts may still exist. The opportunity to implement a hybrid WAN solution model that includes MPLS and SD-WAN provides enterprises with the opportunity to leverage the best attributes of both technologies and begin a phased migration process from MPLS to SD-WAN.

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Why choose SD-WAN? Improve the diversity of user experience

In a predominantly cloud-based 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 are ill-suited to delivering Internet-based cloud traffic, the diversity of routing locations (applications are delivered from multiple clouds, not a single data center), and ensuring application performance across MPLS and Internet-borne services. The impact of this has been an increase in the number of customers evaluating and requesting SD-WAN solutions from their service providers. In fact, it would be difficult to find an enterprise today that has decided to adopt traditional MPLS without considering SD-WAN alternatives. Given the growing promise of improved user experience and enhanced application performance management, the ease with which the benefits of SD-WAN technology can be leveraged - from agility and rapid change to multi-link failover and application prioritization - this should be an essential consideration.

Therefore, the way enterprises decide to deploy SD-WAN will be key. Dominating the market is the managed SD-WAN service model, as experienced MSPs can quickly deploy solutions with demonstrable high performance and multiple built-in features from day one, meaning organizations can reap the benefits almost immediately. Replicating the common outsourced services used by many organizations to achieve WAN connectivity, MSPs are rapidly adding SD-WAN technology to their existing managed service portfolios. These services include all aspects of the SD-WAN solution, from hardware to software, network and connectivity, all delivered within a standard service level agreement (SLA) model.

Compared to managed services, where every aspect of the service and all changes to the parameters of that service are borne by the MSP, an alternative deployment model is SD-WAN as a service. This software-only model provides a multi-tenant infrastructure setup that enables companies to quickly connect sites while also providing IT administrators with the tools to monitor, manage, and change service parameters as needed.

A hybrid approach to SD-WAN

SD-WAN has the potential to be a replacement for MPLS, but this is not necessarily the right choice for every enterprise. Many sites may still have contracts that are still in place for months or years - so replacing SD-WAN will be commercially challenging. Another approach to consider is to combine MPLS and SD-WAN together as a hybrid approach in order to increase capacity, enable rapid expansion, increase control for IT managers, without having to increase the overall MPLS contract term just to add a few sites - without a huge financial outlay. By taking this approach, the case for completely replacing MPLS can be considered long-term without penalty.

For IT managers used to outsourcing WAN connectivity, the evolution from MPLS to managed SD-WAN should be culturally straightforward: the model is the same, the difference is in the underlying technology and the benefits associated with a software-defined model. Differentiation between MSPs will be based on issues such as access to a variety of connectivity options and quality of service - for example, does the MSP support the need for agility and flexibility and future-proofing by offering a network-agnostic SD-WAN?

SLAs will be key, and managed SD-WAN services offered will become increasingly sophisticated over time as MSPs look to leverage the intelligence within SD-WAN technology. Of course, traditional response times are no longer good enough in application-centric organizations, so it’s important to determine if an MSP is leveraging the software nature of SD-WAN to overhaul its own support operations. With software-defined solutions, support can be scaled three, four, or even five times, allowing for faster responses to business needs.

SLAs have evolved from response timelines to response and repair times. With the addition of analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), managed SD-WAN should include increasing levels of automation, such as using application-aware routing to improve performance for increasingly application-centric enterprises.

Maturity and confidence

Of course, if the organization has the resources and confidence to manage the SD-WAN network, many of these benefits can certainly be realized immediately through an internal service model. This option provides the opportunity to maximize the value of SD-WAN technology, such as immediately reallocating application resources as needed without having to wait for an MSP to respond.

However, given the current market maturity, few enterprises have reached the required confidence or technical level. However, as SD-WAN maturity and confidence increase, it may gain interest. In fact, with the proliferation of cloud-based applications, enterprises are becoming more application-centric, and IT departments are looking to devote more resources to monitoring the performance of applications that are critical to business operations.

As a result, these skills will become increasingly embedded within IT teams, which means that, going forward, the SD-WAN as a service model is likely to grow in popularity, dovetailing neatly with next-generation application-aware monitoring and management tools that will be key to improving the end-user experience.

Cost considerations

In terms of service models, the cost difference between managed MPLS and managed SD-WAN services is negligible - although many SD-WAN technologies being developed are significantly more expensive than MPLS alternatives. These are feature-rich solutions, and companies need to employ a robust evaluation methodology to determine if any of the expensive add-ons are truly required.

The SD-WAN as a Service model is significantly cheaper – but it requires additional internal resources, so operational cost comparisons will depend on the existing IT skill base and the need to add heads to manage the network. Finding and recruiting the required skills in-house can result in higher costs than a managed service model.

Regardless of the approach, SD-WAN offers cost and performance benefits. Of course, for those accustomed to a managed services approach, the faster response and automation provided by SD-WAN technology should enable IT managers to reallocate internal resources previously dedicated to managing application issues. Whereas it may take hours to determine if application performance is caused by the WAN, LAN, or device, if the response time provided by an MPLS MSP service is slow, the intelligence provided by SD-WAN enables this diagnosis and fix much faster, reducing the resources needed. SD-WAN technology also makes it easier to manage performance: By combining traffic information with analytics enterprises can spot trends and identify pinch points in the network,

in conclusion

As the market reaches a tipping point, SD-WAN becomes the technology of choice. Without a doubt, the managed service option should be the simplest approach: culturally familiar, but with the added benefits of better performance and radically improved response. In addition, with the number of MSPs now offering managed SD-WAN services, companies have a wider range of choices. Especially for multi-site organizations, the option of a hybrid SD-WAN and MPLS approach provides enterprises with the flexibility to begin migrating to SD-WAN now without being restricted by lengthy MPLS contracts.

Given that most businesses are increasingly application-centric, IT teams have every reason to continue to reallocate resources toward real-time application performance monitoring and management. As a result, not only will expectations for MSP responsiveness rise dramatically, but it will also be important to consider a possible future migration to an SD-WAN as a service model.

Today’s WAN investments need to be future-proofed for at least a decade – so MSPs must not only support both models, but also a mix of MPLS and SD-WAN sites so that organizations can begin to embrace the benefits that SD-WAN can provide. In addition, by supporting migration between the two models, or even adopting a hybrid approach, including opening up permission levels and permissions to IT managers to provide better network visibility and control, will enable enterprises to quickly access the SD-WAN world.