The global pandemic has accelerated enterprise IT teams’ desire to simplify the management of complex multi-cloud and edge environments and operate them holistically as a single WAN. It is also driving IT requirements for delivering the highest levels of application performance for all their cloud-hosted business applications, from any network in the emerging post-pandemic environment. This shift is intensifying the urgency to transform conventional data center and MPLS-centric and VPN-based networks to a more modern hybrid SD-WAN environment that combines MPLS and internet with secure managed internet-based cloud services.

In a hybrid WAN environment, application performance across a WAN can vary considerably from site to site or region to region because of underlying factors such as latency, packet loss and jitter that must be taken into consideration, especially using a mix of MPLS and broadband connectivity services.

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In the first part of this two-part blog series, we discussed five challenges that enterprise IT managers face when it comes to supporting multi-cloud connectivity of applications across the enterprise WAN. We highlighted the first two of the five key capabilities of an advanced SD-WAN platform that enable easier multi-cloud connectivity, which are SaaS optimization and Intelligent Internet Breakout.

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This two-part blog series will provide insights on advanced SD-WAN platform capabilities that can help enterprises simplify their journey towards a better integration of the WAN to multi-cloud providers.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, companies around the world had to shift their focus toward launching new and expanded digital services to support a fully remote workforce and accelerate the transition to a more cloud-connected world – all virtually overnight. The consequence of the global pandemic highlighted the importance of accelerating cloud and digital transformation, resulting in more than 90% of enterprises purporting to now have a multi-cloud strategy in place, according to the Flexera 2020 State of the Cloud Report.

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Today, one of the hottest topics in IT is the emerging Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) model, an architectural framework conceived by Gartner that outlines the future vision for transforming legacy WAN and security technologies to a cloud-managed edge, combining WAN edge capabilities with cloud-delivered network security functions (such as SWG, CASB, FWaaS and ZTNA) to support the dynamic secure access needs of digital enterprises.

The question of the day: Is now the time for managed service providers (MSPs) to define and formalize a SASE offering to deliver an expanded set of managed and professional services that support an integrated enterprise network and security transformation?

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Many enterprises are adopting multi-cloud strategies to leverage multiple cloud platforms to support an expanding range of SaaS and corporate workloads, each with unique performance and service level requirements. Typically, connecting branch office users to cloud-hosted applications requires backhauling the traffic to the corporate data center across an existing legacy WAN infrastructure consisting of traditional routers over private MPLS circuits. This conventional router-centric architecture is proving inefficient and was never designed to address the requirements of today’s modern cloud-first enterprises.

Does every SD-WAN platform ensure that cloud-hosted applications perform well over any underlying network, without compromising end user experience? Before we dive deeper into SD-WAN platform requirements and multi-cloud, let’s first examine key multi-cloud IT drivers that include the ability to:

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As global enterprises continue to adopt and deploy SD-WAN as a key enabler of cloud and digital transformation initiatives, they must also consider the importance of infrastructure scalability to accommodate the dynamic nature of connecting users to business applications and services regardless of where they are physically located. This is driving an increased focus on ease-of-use, automation, and orchestration, which industry analyst firm Futuriom cites as one of the top features of SD-WAN functionality.

Why is this becoming increasingly important? Many large-scale global enterprises have multiple divisions, business units or subsidiaries that may each require a dedicated SD-WAN fabric to comply with company financial policies, geography, business jurisdiction or regulatory requirements or simply to create independent administrative domains. Each fabric can be individually orchestrated and managed yet still provides centralized network-wide visibility and control, including aggregated observability of the entire network.

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It is widely known that enterprises are rapidly migrating many of their back-office business applications and end-user collaboration tools from server-based, private data center hosted services to cloud-hosted services. Commercial software-as-a-service (SaaS) application suites like Office 365, are already some of the most widely deployed SaaS applications, and adoption by enterprises of all sizes continues to grow around the world. 

In a cloud-first enterprise, end users frequently need to access cloud-hosted applications like Office 365 from any location. Regardless of when and where users access cloud applications, they expect a consistent, high quality of experience.

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The majority of enterprise CIOs are of in the midst of a digital transformation journey, migrating more of their business applications and infrastructure from their own data centers to the cloud. These applications include real-time voice calling, video conferencing, email, storage, CRM, and many other software applications now delivered as a service – “SaaS.” To support digital transformation initiatives and shifting traffic patterns as more applications move to the cloud, 94 percent¹ of enterprises are considering, evaluating or have already deployed¹ SD-WAN solutions to address evolving WAN requirements. Enterprises are rethinking their WAN approach to better support multi-cloud infrastructures and to actively leverage higher bandwidth (and often lower cost) broadband services to augment existing MPLS transport networks.

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Today, many enterprise CIO’s are of in the midst of a digital transformation journey, migrating more of their business applications and infrastructure to the cloud, including real-time voice calling, video conferencing and collaboration applications. Enterprises are increasingly adopting Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) services to streamline voice, video and web conferencing via cloud-based software. 

In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2021, 90 percent of IT leaders will not purchase new premises-hosted Unified Communications (UC) infrastructure because future cloud-hosted UCaaS offerings will be far ahead in terms of features, functions, analytics and dashboards. 

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This is the first in a 3-part blog series that will detail how deploying a business-driven SD-WAN edge platform can help enterprises successfully accelerate multi-cloud digital transformation initiatives.

For a growing number of enterprises, a migration to the cloud is not a simple matter of deploying an application or two onto Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or some other hosted service. It’s now a multi-cloud strategy that’s a key part of a digital transformation initiative aimed at modernizing business processes. Using multiple cloud computing services such as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS) in a single unified cloud strategy offers the ability to reduce dependence on any single vendor.

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I’ve been spending some time the past few weeks researching the potential role of SD-WAN in enabling service providers to augment existing managed private cloud connect services with a “managed Over-The-Top (OTT) cloud connect service.”

What if managed service providers could expand their managed cloud connect service offers to include an OTT Cloud Connect service powered by SD-WAN?

Today, most managed service providers offer a private cloud connect service that enables enterprises to securely connect their on-net sites to their cloud-destined application traffic, leveraging the provider’s MPLS or Ethernet network. The applications are then backhauled to the closest provider PoP, where the service provider has “direct connects” to each of the major IaaS (AWS, Azure & Google Cloud) and some SaaS providers (SFDC, Oracle, SAP).

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More than 100,000 attendees from around the world recently descended on Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona. They were able to witness many new and exciting communications technologies, including IoT, 5G, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning and SD-WAN.

MWC also provided an opportunity to showcase how service providers are expanding their existing services footprint with tiered managed SD-WAN services. By leveraging existing Long Term Evolution (LTE) infrastructures, service providers are now offering new mobility-based 4G LTE managed SD-WAN services. In fact, Silver Peak and TPx Communications announced a new strategic agreement at MWC that underscores how TPx plans to expand their managed SD-WAN services into global markets with 4G LTE as one of the key underlying transport network choices for their global customers.

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As we begin 2018, enterprises continue to accelerate their migration of workloads to public cloud service providers (AWS, Azure and Google), often as part of an overall digital transformation (DT) and cloud-first IT strategy. This is not surprising as IDC predicts that by the end of this year, nearly 80% of workloads will be processed in cloud data centers.

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We were excited to participate in the November MEF 17 conference in Orlando, one of the industry’s most informative service provider events of the year. There is a lot of buzz and interest in managed SD-WAN services. It was a key focus area of MEF’s new SD-WAN initiatives and for this year’s conference agenda.

Silver Peak Founder and CEO David Hughes delivered a CEO perspective: “SD-WAN From Software-Defined to Self-Driving.” David presented a vision for how SD-WAN technologies that leverage AI and automation can further accelerate the development of managed, customized SD-WAN services. David’s presentation also explored the future of SD-WAN and its impact on the broader software defined networking space.

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The SD-WAN market continues to experience phenomenal growth. A September 2017 IDC SD-WAN survey highlights that 75 percent of U.S. enterprises plan to adopt an SD-WAN solution in the next two years. Enterprises are eager to embrace and deploy SD-WAN solutions because they provide many important benefits such as improving network and application performance and availability, reducing branch office complexity, lowering bandwidth and operational costs, and improving the performance of directly connecting users from branch locations to cloud-native applications.

Today, enterprises implementing an SD-WAN solution can choose between a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach or selecting a managed SD-WAN service from a managed service provider (MSP). The DIY approach is appealing to enterprises that have in-house expertise in managing their WAN network environment and have invested the time to evaluate and select an SD-WAN solution that addresses their connectivity requirements. In this model, enterprises procure, own, deploy and manage the SD-WAN equipment, software and network connectivity in-house.

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