Criteria to Consider when making an SD-WAN Technology Decision: The move towards SD-WAN is often a detailed decision-making process that takes into account a variety of facets and may cross the boundaries of multiple organizations within your company, including management, IT, security, and finance. Also, given the variety of available options we recommend you consult with third party Trusted Advisors familiar with the SD-WAN landscape to help you make a well-informed choice. Factors to consider when choosing an SD-WAN partner can be visualized as a series of tracks or “swim lanes” for greater organizational purposes. For example, you will likely want to review your existing telco contracts to determine when those contracts are up for renewal, and what the terms might be for early withdrawal. In many cases, enterprise customers are moving to SD-WAN from MPLS, either in whole or in part. In this case, it is often advantageous to explore whether the current contracted telco also provides SD-WAN. This may be your easiest option for transition, but it is useful to review your business needs and understand what alternative providers may offer the best solution for your company especially since SD-WAN is inherently connectivity agnostic, and may be delivered in different form factors, either on-premises or cloud-based. Similarly, some telcos may have stronger positions in some geographies as opposed to others. In this case, the locations of your remote sites become a more prominent factor in your decision-making process. In addition, some solutions work better in a global environment based on the types of networks in use. As we’ve already discussed, applications, management, and security are also among the fundamentals worthy of consideration. You should ask yourself the question: • What applications will be running over the network and where are they located? • Are the any highly network sensitive applications to consider? • Am I equipped to manage the SD-WAN network myself or do I want a full turnkey solution? • What are the security requirements for the solution and is there an opportunity for enhancing my security posture depending on the chosen solution? In addition, the adoption of SD-WAN is part of an overarching WAN modernization strategy that includes choosing the links best suited to delivering the necessary capacity. Copyright © 2019 AVANT Communications, Inc. 20