Supply Chain Management Is Critical to SD-WAN

SD-WAN is not an all-encompassing solution; it is part of a broad application delivery ecosystem. This is not as simple as vendor marketing messages suggest. SD-WAN requires additional costs, time, and IT resources to negotiate multiple carrier Master Service Agreements (MSAs), deploy multiple carrier transport services, and coordinate with individual carrier network operations centers for individual locations.

The basic function of SD-WAN is to aggregate multiple network links. SD-WAN uses policies to intelligently and proactively manage traffic on physical and logical links to avoid congestion, latency, and jitter. This improves application performance and eliminates disruptions to the carrier network.

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When SD-WAN is purchased as a standalone edge solution, it comes with additional long-term costs and resources. When SD-WAN edge products are sold to enterprises, their IT teams and network integrators are responsible for deployment, integration, management, monitoring and support of everything related to SD-WAN.

SD-WAN services purchased from carriers are often limited by the carrier’s network because they are reluctant to include competitors’ networks in their solutions. This means that customers may not get the lowest-priced and most favorable network solution. More importantly, if a serious failure occurs in the carrier’s network, the customer’s wide area network will also collapse, destroying the reliability advantage of SD-WAN. This can be avoided by using a carrier-neutral SD-WAN service.

If the operator does not have fiber in a particular building, the cost of expanding the network will be very high. If there is fiber from another operator in the building, users can purchase WAN connection services provided by that operator. However, this also brings additional burdens to customers, including managing and coordinating multiple operators.

This is where the SD-WAN supply chain and its ecosystem management comes into play.

SD-WAN Supply Chain

The SD-WAN supply chain consists of all the people, activities, information, technology, and resources involved in delivering SD-WAN services. This includes the planning and management of all application delivery infrastructure and activities involved in procurement, deployment, and logistics.

The integration and management of the functional operations of the SD-WAN supply chain becomes particularly important for carrier-neutral SD-WAN services. The business processes, policies and controls that create a fully manageable, cohesive, high-performance SD-WAN service depend on the "secret sauce" that drives supply chain management - simplifying logistics, reducing time to market and simplifying complexity.

SD-WAN service offerings are not all the same. Some are proprietary, made up of networks owned and operated by traditional carriers. Others are carrier-neutral solutions that are designed and built based on each customer's needs.

That’s why the SD-WAN supply chain is critical, as it includes all planning and management of the application delivery infrastructure involving procurement, deployment, and logistics. An SD-WAN service provider manages all transactions as a single point of contact.

A carrier-neutral SD-WAN service will evaluate each customer's location and recommend the best link based on proximity, price, deployment time, and quality of service, a very specific and personalized approach. The global SD-WAN supply chain includes SD-WAN edge equipment, multi-carrier network procurement and agreement contracts, millions of complex data intelligence to simplify the search for competitive link pricing, and multi-carrier management of financing and billing. To achieve this goal, the global SD-WAN supply chain requires strong internal systems, tools, and processes to coordinate and optimize the relationships between hundreds of suppliers.

The evolving application delivery infrastructure will always present a challenge to multi-location enterprises. In this dynamic environment, choosing an SD-WAN service supply chain will improve efficiency and reduce costs. However, it is not the only factor required for success. As with all services, customer experience is the cornerstone of success.

When working with customers, a personalized, consultative approach will ensure their specific business goals and needs are met. Simplifying processes and evolving the SD-WAN supply chain to adapt to customer needs is the ultimate driver of customer relationship quality. A customer-first approach includes providing guidance and education on the various decisions they must make. The SD-WAN supply chain is actually the best application delivery infrastructure with the ultimate goal of meeting the different business needs of each customer.