SD-WANs Part 4: Choosing a Vendor and/or Managed Services Provider

SD-WANs are the new way to optimize business networks, to cover disparate business sites and public cloud service connections, for optimal uptimes and assured speeds.

Today’s article is part 4 in our in-depth series. Click to read SD-WANs Part 1: History, Changing Network Needs, and Advanced Business Solutions, SD-WANs Part 2: Modern SD-WAN Configurations, SD-WANs Part 3: Do You Really Need SD-WAN (And If So, Which One)?

In this edition, we wrap up by covering the major SD-WAN vendors available in Australia, then how to choose a Managed Services Provider (MSP) to setup and manage the technology.

SD-WAN vendors in Australia

You’ll come across a few articles floating around that cover SD-WAN in Australia, however, mainly these are about managed solutions – rather than the SD-WAN technology vendors themselves.

Here we cover the major SD-WAN vendors in the country.

Cisco

Cisco is a well-known networking powerhouse, and their SD-WAN solutions offer customers some of the best tech in the business.

Cisco Meraki devices can be installed across your network with firmware updates automatically deployed with zero touch. Meraki devices allow businesses to have both MPLS links and ISP links to route traffic, or a combination of different ISP links to route traffic, and includes an auto VPN. With Meraki, there is a 1-1 ratio of licensing to hardware.

You can combine these devices with other Cisco SD-WAN solutions such as Cisco vEdge Cloud to extend your SD-WAN to public cloud services.

VMWare VeloCloud

VMWare’s VeloCloud offers a similar set of technologies and services to Cisco, with on-site hardware via the VMware SD-WAN Edge, which offers load balancing between a number of different networking technologies (including MPLS, broadband, and 4G), plus solutions for popular cloud platforms such as AWS.

Silver Peak & Riverbed

Silver Peak and Riverbed are similar vendors in terms of configuration options to Cisco and VMWare, but are just not as well known by many of our customers.

Fortinet SD WAN

Fortinet offer similar services to the other vendors listed, although what sets them apart is their high security rating, as an industry leader in cybersecurity. Unlike other vendors, one of the SD-WAN hardware appliances offered offers security built into the device – via the SD-WAN ASIC solution.

Choosing a vendor

When choosing a vendor, you’ll need to take a look at the capabilities of each solution, whether they fit with your existing public clouds, and how easy their configuration and management is (if you are intending on managing your SD-WAN solution in-house).

This will involve following up with each vendor to get a complete report about your needs and requirements. If you don’t have the resources, or someone available in-house to evaluate the solutions effectively, then you can partner with someone like us to give you a full report of what the best options are for your business.

Choosing a Managed Services Provider

If you would prefer not to manage your configuration in-house, or don’t have the resources available to do so currently, then you can choose a Managed Service Provider (MSP) to do the job for you.

We offer this service to customers. It means that once your requirements are outlined, you can hand over the rollout, configuration, and management of your SD-WAN and not have to worry about this networking infrastructure; simply let an MSP do the job for you.

Choosing an MSP that you trust is critical to ensuring a great ongoing relationship and network availability, speed, and security. You want an MSP that is responsive, friendly, knowledgeable, and timely with new relevant information about the services that may apply to you.If you’re interested in an evaluation of which SD-WAN vendor is the right one for your business and/or would like an MSP to take on configuring and running your SD-WAN, then look to us at A1 Technologies. Contact us now to speak to one of our knowledgeable professionals for more information.

Julia Sinclair-Jones

Tech writer and ex-software developer with a penchant for travel, techno, and data. Spreading the word of secure, manageable, optimised IT solutions for everyone.