Opportunity Issue 103

SD-WAN TECHNOLOGY
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Migrating from MPLS to SD-WAN is
becoming a no-brainer
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Deployment and transition
Any transformation project has inherent risks. “Scope, cost and
time are constraints that need to be carefully understood and
managed to ensure quality delivery. Usually, a controlled pilot
can help to identify risks and mitigation plans, and even assist
in choosing between technology alternatives before a scaled
roll-out,” says Kevin. “From experience, however, this is the easier
part. Often, the hard part is ensuring seamless contracting and
transition between service providers. This is especially true
if there are several supplier contracts across the networking
stack, including routers, switches, firewall and access links across
multiple territories. To ensure speed to value with minimal
scope creep, choosing the right provider with experience in
delivering large-scale network-transformation projects is key,”
explains Kevin.
Juggling a multitude of regional contracts is common in
multinational banks with global operations, where each country
invariably has its own budgetary constraints, challenges and
demands. The one commonality is that a multinational's head
office often desires to source a service (like SD-WAN) from a single
supplier and be able to provide the same user experience across all
its branches. “For highly dispersed multinational banks, SD-WAN is
ideal, affording a single view across the entirety of their network,”
adds Kevin.
The benefits
By opting for one service provider, customers benefit from volume
pricing. Furthermore – and crucial for banks with a large physical
footprint – they can have the reassurance that comes from working
with a Tier 1 operator. Vodacom was the first service provider in
Africa to achieve the prestigious MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification,
which confirms that its services comply with the highest industry
standards for performance, assurance and agility.
Legacy networks “work” so to speak but are not optimised
for future-ready businesses. One of the best features of an SD-
WAN deployment is the fact that it uses any existing broadband
infrastructure and does not require the ripping and replacement
of legacy systems.
The rationale for migrating to next-generation networks is as
clear as it is compelling – SD-WAN networks are a significantly
better fit strategically for Cloud services, IoT, digital twins and unified
communications. It is particularly relevant for well-established
global banks who were traditionally bound to an expensive legacy
access infrastructure for their wide area networks. In contrast, nextgeneration
SD-WAN networks open them up to utilising low-cost
Internet connectivity.
Disruption to business continuity need not be a concern. Banks
can have a hybrid setup, maintaining some of their legacy MPLS
wide-area networks, while moving branches individually to SD-WAN.
Depending on their transformation roadmap, banks could adopt a
phase-in phase-out approach, running a hybrid network with legacy
MPLS VPN in some branches and SD-WAN in others, and then migrate
those branches that are still on the legacy networks over time.
Futureproofed for the digital era
Beyond modernising their infrastructure and availing themselves
of the cutting-edge technology, the underlying reason behind
migrating from legacy networks to a Software Defined Network is
that it affords BFSI organisations greater agility and the ability to open
up new revenue streams.
In recent years, banks have been pressured to diversify their
offerings to remain competitive in response to mobile players
like Apple and Google moving into banking and fintechs such as
Chime capturing market share. However, for a bank to expand into
other verticals without jeopardising its core business requires a
greater degree of agility, which is ultimately what next-generation
networks offer.
For banks, time is of the essence. In 2021, the EY NextWave Global
Consumer Banking Survey urged incumbent banks around the
world to “act with urgency to protect their advantages, which are
under direct attack by these new providers.“ It added that banks
must also “build new business models capable of satisfying today’s
consumer needs and evolve and scale to meet future needs and
market developments.“
This is exactly what Vodacom Business can enable for banks
today. By migrating to SD-WAN, banks are future-proofed and
ideally positioned to take advantage of a nimble network. They can
use big data, along with machine learning and artificial intelligence,
to refine their processes and better cater to their customers' needs
and thus remain relevant.
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