If you’ve researched purchasing an SD-WAN solution from an ISP, there’s a good chance it’s not your ISP who is providing the actual SD-WAN service. [say what?!]

Way back in 2016… the demand for SD-WAN emerged so furiously, ISP’s have had to make a quick decision: 1) roll-out a solution immediately; or 2) get tabbed as an old rickety out-of-date ISP. Consequently, rather than building their own solution (a lengthy process), most ISP’s have decided to take the easy route and white label someone else’s vetted product.

Many of these ISP’s have chosen VeloCloud to be the SD-WAN solution under the hood.

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“I don’t drink water, period. I live in Los Angeles and the water I get from the tap is lackluster, in terms of quality.”

If someone said this, what is the first thought that comes to mind (assuming the person isn’t wearing hemp clothing and has their hair in dreadlocks)?

“Have you tried using a water filter?” … is what you and I would probably ask, right?

After you read below, this will be the same thing you say when you hear someone say, “VoIP isn’t a good fit for our company because we only have one ISP in the area, and the connection is shaky, at best.”

Your response will be “Have you tried using SD-WAN to fix your call quality?”

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Retail hasn’t lost its “cool.” [aaaayyyyy]

It’s just reinventing it. We know this but Amazon’s recent purchase of Whole Foods sure gave everyone a wake-up call to “innovate or get left-in-the-dust.”

I know, you’re in charge of IT, not corporate strategy… but bear with me. This ends up being an IT thing.

As Forbes recently detailed, while Amazon unveiled its plans for Whole Foods (which includes decreased prices and the addition of industry-disrupting in-store technology), the market reacted. That same afternoon, stocks of several major brick-and-mortar retailers and grocery stores experienced significant drops in stock price.

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4G LTE Internet is an under-utilized asset for your company’s network… and your sanity.

As someone who’s owned a business telecom, Internet, and cloud brokerage for 14 years [shameless plug], I’ve had my share of drama surrounding circuits taking too long to install. Whether it’s fiber taking a year to get built-out, or a T1 taking 6 weeks to install (when our customer’s business was relocating in 4), being at the mercy of an ISP’s unexplainable, bureaucratic timeline has been the most stressful part of my job.

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Lately, our clients with an MPLS WAN are starting to ask: “Should we get rid of our MPLS and go to SD-WAN? Is SD-WAN better?”

I don’t mean to make this question sound childish (since it’s a fantastically good question), but it reminds me of a mistake I made when my 9-year-old son asked me a question the other day.

He is obsessed with baseball, so, of course, he asked me something all of us baseball fans have wondered at some point: “Daddy, which is better… a guy who hits .250 with 50 home runs or a guy who hits .300 with 10 home runs?”

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Question: Remote users, IPsec VPN’s to other sites, Remote Desktop, VoIP, Cloud Apps… What do they all have in common?

“Reasons why I keep Tums in my drawer?” … No.

Answer: These are data center applications which might require your company to need a Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) circuit, instead of the average, cost-effective business Internet access types, like Fios, U-verse, business-class cable, and DSL.

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Maybe it’s because I’ve been married 16 years. Maybe it’s because we have 4 young children. Whatever the reason, at 42 years old, I’m slowly learning something about myself.

I’m sometimes… wrong. [gasp]

And when I notice it, it’s much better to admit it than make up an excuse. Can you relate?

So, here is how this matters to you… I was wrong about Disaster Recovery as a Service (a.k.a. DRaaS). [bigger gasp]

As the CEO of a business cloud and telecom brokerage, DRaaS is something I’ve heard about for a long time. But for a couple of years, I dismissed it. I didn’t think it was a fit for the majority of our clients (i.e. small- and medium-sized companies).

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If you’re contemplating whether SD-WAN will improve your company’s Wide Area Network, I’ve learned it’s important to first get a grasp of the different SD-WAN architectures.

As a long-time business ISP and cloud broker, I’ve had the best seat in the house for watching the SD-WAN craze take flight. As dozens of SD-WAN product offerings pop up, I have the enviable job of making sense of it all. [sigh]

In my observation, there are 3 main buckets of SD-WAN architecture, each of which benefit certain types of companies. Which architecture is “best” depends on the applications your company is accessing through your WAN.

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