Conversion to SD-WAN

For many CIOs, IT Directors, Network Teams and more, the thought of migrating (yet again) another Wide Area Network (WAN) from traditional private MPLS to SD-WAN seems daunting.  If you are relatively new to the responsibility of your organization’s WAN (say in the last 10 years) you probably remember what moving from Frame-Relay or IP VPNs to MPLS was a bear.  However, remember the fully meshed network and easy routing with MPLS’s VRFs?  It actually was a breath of fresh air albeit the costs.

Companies now realize installing SD-WAN allows them to generally use any type of local loop or data access type.  Wait, I am now connecting from the internet to my organization??!!

There is no doubt you must take security and a zero trust approach to building your new network.  This isn’t just performing a review of services but deeply focusing your due diligence efforts around your WAN

Gartner has even added SD-WAN as part of their coverage into the Hype Cycle focus, you can access more here if you are subscribed.  This is good news as the early pioneer days of SD-WAN go to market felt like this was more of a pipe dream than a reality.  Now with more workloads cloud enabled, the push for SD-WAN will continue at a healthy CAGR.

Let’s not forget, when VOIP was launched as the killer to all TDM voice needs, many started to realize the requirement of combining Voice and Data.  Yes, there was a time when Voice was not viewed as an application but rather a separate necessity for communications and typically run by another team in the IT purview.

What is SD-WAN and how do I install it?  Does SD-WAN have Security Concerns?  Will SD-WAN cost my organization less?  Who are the best SD-WAN providers?  These are all excellent questions and outside of writing hours of blogs, we could simply have a quick conversation over email, phone or slack!