SD-WAN
next few years. “Generally speaking, I see the technology vendors continuing to integrate with security ecosystem players, driving automation and workflow,” he says. “I also anticipate that vendors will look to provide a much richer view of the actionable intelligence they are collecting across the stack. There is so much data collected but network and security teams need to easily determine how to best use it to advance their transformation goals. I also see an accelerated move to SD-LAN technologies, bringing the same benefits seen on the WAN to the local networks.” Meanwhile Adam believes that the market has two major headwinds for continued acceleration. “Firstly, router upgrades from ISP routers to firewalls and SD-WAN devices for additional security/SD-WAN integrations and, secondly, Security Service Edge (Web, CASB, ZTNA, etc.) projects are now also including SD-WAN components in an evolved SASE framework. “The SD-WAN market is evolving from a point product to part of a solution sell. Customers are wanting to converge to as few vendors as possible with as many solutions as they can while having a connected security platform for unified protection across all communication channels. “What we’re also seeing is customers looking at how they provide access to that security platform and how they provide the best level of service for business applications whilst also ensuring security and protection from data leakage. After all, we are now living in a world where we don’t host or own applications anywhere – it’s all SaaS. “Over the next few years, I expect to see the move from SD-WAN to an evolved SASE framework help the age-old dichotomy between the networking and security teams become one team, with shared goals and shared resources.”
better for that. But if you talk customers about what they are offloading into the cloud, whether it is public or private cloud, are you still running datacentres and when you go through that capability, you tend to end up with a layering. Some of our customers have hybrid networks as they can work together, especially where customers have datacentre to datacentre for their own capability.” Jonathan adds that a methodical approach is required with customers. “You need to ask customers what applications they are using, where are they hosted, what are their security needs and uptime needs and from there you can start building out an understanding of where SD-Wan will work for them and where it won’t – an important part of a consultative approach is not to push product they don’t need,” he says. “We have had customers come to us saying they are looking at SD-WAN and we have said ‘why?’ and then gone through that conversation with them and we will look at partial solutions or say it doesn’t work for how they work. It is looking at how they use their traffic, what advantages they are looking to gain from it and then work out where SD-WAN will and won’t work for them.” Rob Bolton, EMEA vice-president at Versa Network, adds that as the channel is extremely competitive, and differentiated, value added services are an important part of growing and retaining customers. “I would argue there are few areas as critical for enterprises as their network and security posture,” he says. “The most successful channel models I see for secure SD-WAN are where there is a level of managed services being provided. This can open all sorts of other offerings based in the visibility and access to decision makers a channel partner would have.” There are also relatively few barriers to entry for businesses in the channel that want to provide SD- WAN solutions, although as Rob notes, things are a lot easier if the business knows networking and possibly already offers managed services.
Jonathan Wright Global Cloud Xchange
globalcloudxchange.com
Rob Bolton Versa Networks
“There needs to be a high level of vendor knowledge so training and certifications become important,” he says. “Vendors like Versa with multi tenancy built into the platform make things a lot easier for channel and customer deployments and overall management.”
versa-networks.com
Future development With interest in SD-WAN solutions growing, the opportunities for businesses in the channel are set to grow in the coming years, although as Rob notes, there are many economic, social and political factors that will influence the
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