NC1801

FEATURESD-WAN
DIGITAL
HAND-WRINGING
WHILE SD-WAN CAN OFFER
HUGE FLEXIBILITY, THAT FIRST
STEP CAN BE CHALLENGING.
ROB ANDERSON, DIRECTOR
OF PRODUCT MARKETING AT
NETFOUNDRY TRIES TO DISTIL
ITS ESSENCE
Today's private networks are complex.
The time and money involved in
implementing and managing the
modern WAN is not to be underestimated,
so it should come as no surprise that, while
SD-WAN permeates the trade papers, the
decision to pull the trigger on undertaking
an SD-WAN upgrade is one that is rife with
hand-wringing and anxiety. The larger the
network, the tougher the call, but
successful SD-WAN deployments are
possible if you know where to start and
what to look out for.
THE LAY OF THE LAND
A lot of things are changing in the digital
world. Rapid technological advancements
are shifting the way we interact with the
people, places and companies around us.
Thus, when planning an SD-WAN
deployment, consider the future. Your
company and your customers are going to
change and your network needs to adapt.
Find providers that are software-only and
hardware agnostic. If you're going to
spend the time and money required to
implement SD-WAN then you should invest
in a solution that isn't constrained by a
single vendor.
SOLVE IMMEDIATE HEADACHES FIRST
Whichever SD-WAN solution you decide
on, you're going to be dealing with it for a
long time, so make sure that you
thoroughly vet the solution before taking
the plunge. Test it out in situations you
know will require a lot of your attention,
but limit the breadth of the test. If you have
a new SaaS solution, IoT deployment or
distributed application that your employees
will need to access in the future, why not
test this first? The future is cloudy for
everyone. Even financial institutions are
processing the majority of their transactions
in the cloud according to Gartner. If your
solution of choice can't seamlessly
integrate with multiple public and private
cloud providers at scale, is it really the best
solution you can find?
TRUST NO ONE
If Fox Mulder taught us anything it's that
trust is a risky bet. Security incidents are
commonplace and top minds are telling
us that zero trust is a requirement, not an
option, for the networks of tomorrow.
Does your favorite SD-WAN solution have
the means to establish and uphold context
specific perimeters? If it doesn't, does it
play nicely with software-defined
perimeter solutions?
IHS forecasts that the IoT installed base
will explode to over 75.4 billion devices by
2025. What are the chances your
company ends up being part of that? Does
the SD-WAN solution you're considering
ensure those endpoints can be managed
as they grow, while being introduced to
business-critical internal resources
securely? Without a focus on zero trust, the
answer is probably not.
THE CARRIER-AGNOSTIC IMPERATIVE
When the executive team makes key
decisions regarding expansion and M&A
activity, are they considering the on-net
footprint of the telco provider you just
signed a three-year contract with? I doubt
it. Should you bet your job on the hope
that this same provider will able to give you
affordable connectivity to every cloud
solution you're planning on leveraging over
the next three Christmas holidays? If you
did and made it through, you'd be lucky.
Finding an SD-WAN solution that is carrieragnostic
should be a top priority because it
is the only way to future-proof a network
whose shape and demands are guaranteed
to change.
PLAN TO WORK AND WORK TO PLAN
By carefully considering the future,
prototyping before reaching production,
planning your defences, and securing
the value of being vendor agnostic, you
can dip your toe into the SD-WAN pool
and choose with confidence before
diving into a solution that will need to
grow and change at the same pace as
your company, customers, and the rest of
the world. NC
WWW.NETWORKCOMPUTING.CO.UK @NCMagAndAwards JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 NETWORKcomputing 31