THE PATH TO SD-WAN - A TECHNOLOGY REPORT
Author: Sorell Slaymaker
Principal Consulting Analyst & SD-WAN Architect | TechVision Research
Historically SD-WANs represent the 4th generation of Wide Area Networks and totally transform the way WANs are designed and built. Most research to date in this area focuses on the benefits of SD-WANs.
This report does not only cover the value of SD-WANs, but the reality of how and when SD-WANs be used most effectively, architectural approaches and associated trade-offs.
Every enterprise network is unique and selecting and implementing an SD-WAN strategy is a complex process.
Table of Contents
- Abstract
- Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Introduction
- Why WANs Are Important, Unique, Growing, Yet Slow to Change
- The Network is More Than a Utility
- Why Every Enterprise WAN is Unique
- Network Utilization Will Grow 5x by 2024
- Why Network Refreshes Take 3 – 4 Years
- The Promise of SD-WANs
- Why SD-WANs?
- Application-Centric Networking to Make Your Network Faster and More Reliable
- Intent Based Networking to Make Your Network Better
- Reduce WAN Costs by 50% To Make Your Network Cheaper
- Zero Trust Security to make your Network More Secure
- The Reality of SD-WANs
- No Standard – and This is a Big Problem
- 25 – 50% “Bandwidth Tax!”
- Lack of Scalability
- New Hardware Required
- Poor ROI for Large Sites
- 60 – 80ms of Additional Latency
- Inefficient Double Encryption
- Too Many SD-WAN Vendors
- Architectural Considerations for SD-WAN
- Business Architecture
- Business Metrics and Defining Success
- Who Controls the SD-WAN solution – IT or Business?
- What Enterprises can do to Save Money & Improve Performance
- Adopting a Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Strategy
- Business and IT Culture and Guiding Principles
- Managed Service Versus Do It Yourself
- Technical Architecture
- Access Circuits – The Network Underlay Foundation
- Transport – The Network Underlay Paths
- Choosing the Right Hardware
- The SD-WAN Intelligent Network Overlay
- Management and Orchestration
- Security Architecture
- SD-WAN SASE Strategy
- SD-WAN Firewall
- Segmentation
- Internet Offload or Not
- UC Architecture
- Network Challenges with UC
- Adding SBCs to SD-WAN
- Testing VoIP in SD-WAN
- Future Architecture Considerations
- Open Source’s Role
- IPv6
- Eight Networking Disruptors
- SD-WAN Predictions for 2020
- Business Architecture
- Deploying an SD-WAN
- Guidelines
- Roles & Responsibilities
- Master System of Record and Documentation
- Equipment Location
- Notable Exception Process
- Network Transport Validation
- Capacity Planning
- Logical Configurations
- Additional Considerations
- Conclusions & Recommendations
- About TechVision
- About the AuthorsAppendix
- VxLAN Overlay Example Layout – Cisco SDA
Sorell SlaymakerThis is the heading
SD-WAN Architect | TechVision Research
- B.S. & M.E. in Telecom Engineering
- Started working on the Internet in 1987 - Ran Midnet 1993-7
- Network Architect six Fortune 100 enterprises
- Gartner Analyst - Networking, UC/CC, Security
- SD-WAN Experience - Started working on SD-WAN in 2012. Network Designs at: Large Retailers, Energy, Government
- 2019 World SD-WAN conference chair
More Resources
Amir Zmora explaining about flexiWANs networking applications framework for SD-WAN & partnership with Enea
flexiWAN’s SD-WAN Pricing Explained – Learn about the 3 hosting options for flexiManage
Why using one bloated SW stack for all use cases is a compromise enterprises & SPs shouldn’t make