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SD-WAN Growth

SD-WAN Evaluation Factors in 2021

The adoption of SD-WAN will be a critical factor in the success of businesses that use cloud, virtualization, and mobility solutions in 2021. The internet is changing and so the way we do things. While it’s true that MPLS still has a lot of advantages, it’s no longer the only way to get high-speed broadband access. Software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) is a technology that helps reduce business costs by eliminating the need for dedicated data feeds.

Network Accessibility on a Global Scale

Cloud optimization and hybrid networks are two buzzwords that everyone in the industry is talking about. Essentially, cloud optimization is the process of moving resources from a traditional IT environment to a cloud-based environment. Service providers can use SD-WAN to improve their networks’ availability and performance. Service providers can leverage SD-WAN to scale their services, reduce capital expenses, and improve connectivity for customers.
Many companies are realizing that to stay competitive, they need to move their data and applications to the cloud.

Data centers are increasingly being used for cloud-based computing. Cloud computing is a trend in IT that allows users to store, process, and retrieve information from a remote database. SD-WAN providers help their clients achieve long-term optimization for their partners and customers. The ultimate goal is helping your business reach its full potential by providing a more efficient service across the globe. Cloud-based systems are here to stay. They enable organizations to be more flexible, agile, and responsive. Virtualization is the next step in cloud migration.

SD-WAN lowers total cost of ownership

It’s always going to be a CAPEX vs OPEX discussion.

SD-WAN is a less costly WAN option than MPLS. SD-WAN has the advantage of being much more scalable, which means it can be used for large enterprise networks with thousands of users. Today’s enterprise network is more complex than ever before. It’s getting so complex that it’s requiring an IT department to monitor and manage it. As a result, IT departments are being stretched thin. Having control over your network visibility and performance is important in today’s social media landscape. Social media management tools like HootSuite and Buffer make it easy to manage multiple accounts with notifications, scheduling, and analytics.

SD-WAN networks are a great way to connect your branch offices and core sites with a lower cost than MPLS networks. On average, companies that transition to SD-WAN can reduce their networking costs by over 50 percent. Because network management and monitoring is handled by the software, IT departments no longer have to worry about the tools and expertise needed to properly manage networks.

SD-WAN is easier to deploy and manage

Deploying SD-WAN may seem more complicated than deploying MPLS, but the reality is quite the opposite. Deploying SD-WAN is easier than deploying MPLS because it’s easier to manage and troubleshoot. Managed SD-WAN solutions provide even more options for IT teams. Managed SD-WAN is a type of service that organizations can use to control their network infrastructure.

Deploying SD-WAN is easier than deploying MPLS networks. The main reason why SD-WAN is more cost effective is because it only requires a single WAN interface, whereas MPLS requires a collection of inter-connected interfaces. Managed SD-WAN is the next big thing in WAN optimization. There are a lot of options out there, but it’s important to pick the right vendor for your network.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

IoT and SASE

IoT and the Role of SASE in 2021

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The Internet of Things is about much more than just connecting your devices. It’s about sharing data in real-time, seamlessly, securely, and in a standardized format. IoT is taking the tech world by storm, with smart appliances, buildings, and cars that are connected. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The era of the Internet of Things will be upon us before we know it”. It’s an “Internet of Things” network. The IoT is a technological system in which objects can be connected to the internet so that they can send and receive data via wireless communication, where these devices are embedded with electronics or software that allows them to interact with each other as well as the internet. It allows objects and their associated data (e.g. sensors) for various purposes to be connected, such as smart energy, smart homes, smart cities, smart business, smart products and even smart people.

Increased Demands on the Network

The Internet of Things is increasing the number of connected devices on a network. These devices can be connected to the network via IP address, MAC address or other identifiers. The proliferation of IoT devices is causing organizations to rethink how they secure data. And where there’s a lot of data, there’s a lot of opportunity for hackers. Being active on social media is crucial for your career. One of the best ways to use this to your advantage is to engage with customers on Twitter and elsewhere using their favorite hashtags.

As the technology continues to evolve, it is becoming increasingly important to provide for the continuity of business operations in a digital environment. However, as new technologies emerge, so do new security challenges. The number of IoT devices is exploding, and so are the number of security threats. As these devices become more prevalent, they’re exposed to more cyberattacks. That means that companies have to take their security measures much more seriously.
Digital transformation has quickly become the dominant force in enterprise IT. This trend is forcing organizations to modernize legacy IT infrastructures, and to rethink the role of technology in their businesses.

In most organizations, segmentation of traffic is accomplished using VLANs and virtual routing and forwarding mechanisms called VRFs. Each VLAN is assigned a unique ID, such as vlan 100. In the recent past, electronic devices and sensors have been viewed as a means to collect information and provide valuable insights to your organization. Enterprises are realizing that there’s a lot more to the WAN than just application delivery. We’re seeing an increase in businesses using advanced SD-WAN platforms for WAN optimization and management, as well as application delivery.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

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SD-WAN will continue to offer Cost Savings in 2021

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SDWAN Rankings is your source for the latest SD-WAN and SASE news and vendor rankings. We also partner with clients to help them find the best SD-WAN solutions at no charge. Through our relationships with the industry we can offer an agnostic service to help YOU find the best provider. If it works out, the provider (they all do this) will provide us a small bonus.

Here are some of the things the people we’ve helped have said about SD-WAN in 2020 and heading into 2021.

The cost of SD-WAN is much less than the cost of MPLS. The main difference between SD-WAN and MPLS is that while MPLS involves a centralized network, SD-WAN uses a decentralized approach. SD-WAN is a next-generation network that delivers a high level of security, scalability, and reliability. It uses both MPLS and BGP to create virtual private networks (VPNs) that can span across geographic boundaries. SD-WAN is the next big thing in network technology. It’s an open-source solution that provides a more secure, scalable, and efficient network.

Bob – VP Information Systems at a regional Credit union

Despite the increase in MPLS deployments due to WAN optimization, SD-WAN continues to be a cost effective alternative. In fact, SD-WAN is a more affordable and more scalable alternative than technologies such as MPLS. SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) is a software framework that provides better visibility into the network and the data it carries. SD-WAN provides the ability to create private, virtual networks over existing WAN infrastructures. SD-WAN allows enterprises to efficiently and securely move applications from one datacenter to another without compromising network performance or security.

Lisa – Director of IT in Recruiting Vertical

SD-WAN can reduce the cost of a network by as much as three times compared to MPLS. SD-WAN is also easier to scale than MPLS, so it’s easier for some businesses to deploy. SD-WAN is a branch of SDN technology that offers stronger security, scalability, and management of data centers. With SD-WAN, IT organizations can reduce costs and improve efficiency by combining their WAN links into a single network. SD-WAN is a technology that offers a better network performance for your business. When used with the appropriate NOC solution, SD-WAN can improve the performance of your network and provide greater agility to your connected devices.

James P – CTO Retail

SD-WAN has a lot of benefits over MPLS for the network and the company. MPLS is expensive and requires a lot of maintenance. SD-WAN is a new technology that creates a virtual private network (VPN) between networks. It’s a more secure alternative to WAN optimization, which uses traditional routing protocols and TCP port numbers for transporting data. SD-WAN offers better network performance and better uptime than traditional WAN technologies, like MPLS. SD-WAN is very efficient, and reduces CPU utilization, which also extends the life of your servers and networking equipment.

DIY VP

SD-WAN is a new kind of network architecture that allows a company to have multiple WAN paths and direct connections between sites. This can improve the performance of applications on your network, but it comes at a cost.
SD-WAN allows for centralized communication between users and devices. This could be a huge deal for businesses that are concerned about security. SD-WAN is a virtual private network that delivers the benefits of traditional VPNs with improved performance and reduced cost.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

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SD-WAN Market Cap expected to Grow to nearly $50 Billion over the next Decade

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Global SD-WAN is anticipated to reach nearly $50 billion by 2030.

SD-WAN or (Software Defined WAN) providers have been big beneficiary of the digital transformation initiatives organizations have faced over the last three to five years. In addition to digital transformation initiatives, massive growth in the areas of big data technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) that businesses are leveraging has become a very valuable resource for organizations, needing to utilize these new technologies moving away from rigid Dedicated Internet and MPLS solutions.

SD- WAN addresses many of the challenges brought on by the massive increase of data volumes. These providers have figured out how to handle the massive volumes of data being created, while securely monitoring data insuring nothing is mishandled or stolen.

The Pandemics Role in SD-WAN Acceleration

Initially organizations believed the pandemic would temorarily impact returns to office, but organizations are finding benefits in moving to a more permanent work from home(WFH) offerings for their high value workers. This has provided an additional boost for SD-WAN as organizations deploy reliable scalable software-defined pipes that allow secure connections over a variety of broadband types.

The future of Network Operations impacted by Software Defined WAN

Another big area that presents itself for the growth in this market is the ability to to see and interact with data real time, the network operations centers of the future are going to rely more on these managed type services that start using predictive as a service type offerings speeding up resolution of challenges and making sure that issues are addressed as soon as possible.

What is the role of 5G with SD-WAN?


One consideration around the future of SD-WAN is the impact of 5g, as it becomes broadly available across the United States. Initially, it’s anticipated that organizations will leverage 5g technologies as a backup solution, until the data providers can offer reliable and consistent output. At that point, we may start seeing organizations especially around remote work attempts to leverage 5g as a primary solution with SD WAN becoming a backup source.

market study report, LLC recently did a comprehensive report, looking at the future of the growth in this industry, and the impacts of digital transformation IoT, and the pandemic. We highly recommend anyone looking for details around this report, click the link attached at the bottom of this blog, and the report.

They focus on how the contractions and economic growth, are massively being impacted by COVID-19 and how this is shift shifted supply and demand for organizations, and the immediate needs for software defined networking, period.

They also look at some of the major players in the software defined space, and the detailed benefits that may impact to the top verticals including healthcare retail manufacturing Telecom, and more.

This report also discusses the impact of the different types of software defined networking and how they may be impacted in a on premise cloud based and cloud enabled type solutions and how that’s going to impact both residential and commercial applications, moving forward.

Other highlights of the week include a new Gartner firewall report that highlights for the neck checkpoint and Palo Alto Networks, as the main players in that space.

Organizations are also trying to figure out what to do with SASE.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

Juniper nabs 128 Technology

Juniper Drives 2020 SD-WAN Consolidation

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Juniper has announced that they plan on acquiring 128 Technology for nearly $500 million. They have announced that 128 Technology’s smart networking will enhance the Juniper Artificial Intelligence(AI) enterprise network. Organizations are quickly evolving passed the first iterations of SD-WAN and exploring opportunitites to better connect branches, main offices, and data centers as organizations continue digital transformation initiatives.

CEO of Juniper Networks Rami Rahim stated:

With 128 Technology, we are adding a highly differentiated technology into our award-winning arsenal of campus and branch solutions driven by Mist AI to deliver even more customer value while further accelerating Juniper’s continued growth in the enterprise.

Rami Rahim, CEO Juniper Networks

128 Technologies was a well-funded startup created around 2014, raising nearly $100 million dollars with a culminating series D investment round in 2019. Juniper is also incentivizing 128 employees with additional incentive / retention stock and bonuses to insure a max-exodus doesn’t occur.

This acquisition highlights the continued consolidation we are seeing in and around the software-defined networking space. Don’t be surprised if there isn’t another major acquisition or two as Private Equity and Venture Capital try to extract as much value as possible from these high performing assets to offset other losses.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

Medium-Business-SD-WAN-Considerations

SD-WAN for the Medium Sized Business

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In our previous blog post, we discussed how many small to midsized business (SMB) organizations are rarely asked “what is the business problem you want SD-WAN to solve?” by SD-WAN vendors. Business intent is an important discussion for all CIOs and IT managers considering SD-WAN, but many SD-WAN vendors default to selling on a list of product features and hardware specifications.

In our conversations with IT buyers, SD-WAN Rankings found that CIOs and IT managers want vendors to offer SD-WAN setups that help solve business rather than technological issues. Hardware specifications and datasheets for an SD-WAN appliance do not answer the critical question that every CIO is asking: “What are we needing this SD-WAN solution to do for our business?”

For CIOs whose businesses are no longer small but not quite up to the global enterprise level, SD-WAN Rankings encourages midsized businesses to consider these criteria for a successful SD-WAN deployment:

Defining midsized

The fact that there is no universally-accepted definition for a “midsized” company should not be a surprise. Multiple studies in North America and Europe have determined that the majority of everyone with a steady job considers themselves to be “middle-class workers.” The corporate director and university administrator making six-figure salaries considered themselves to be in the same socioeconomic strata as the office worker and college instructor working under them for significantly less money.

Rather than defining a “midsized” business strictly by revenue, think of a business as a company serving and staffed by the local community. Small businesses serve communities, midsized and large businesses scale up to serve larger communities and geographical areas. SD-WAN Rankings is looking at midsized businesses that include financial services such as regional banks, manufacturing firms, and retailers such as car dealerships with repair services. These midsized companies have multiple offices and employees that are spread out across a large geographical area but not at a nationwide scale. As such, these companies want a consistency of service from SD-WAN and can often spend more on the IT resources required to achieve that higher level of quality.

SD-WAN Rankings Recommendations for midsized and multistate companies

CIOs at midsized organizations are likely to be interested in a managed services provider for SD-WAN rather than a large telecom carrier or pure do it yourself SD-WAN appliance vendor. The biggest downside of carrier-based or DIY SD-WAN for midsized businesses is the cost of support. An appliance vendor for SD-WAN hardware such as VMware VeloCloud or Versa are good for companies with a DIY ethos when it comes to IT—and have the large IT budgets and human capital to deploy and manage them. A telecom carrier such as AT&T or Verizon in the USA, Bell or Telus in Canada, and BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, and Telefonica in Europe often will provide good support for SD-WAN deployments, but are often bureaucratic and slow—unless your company has the money to pay for “named account” support.

The most successful SD-WAN deployments at midsized companies are performed by managed service providers (MSPs). Fittingly, it is the mid-sized MSPs such as Masergy and CenturyLink in the US offering the most viable options around price, performance, and support. In Canada, providers of business cable services such as Shaw do well. European midsized organizations often operate on a much different scale than in North America because of the geography. A business in the USA that operates in a couple of states in the northeast or southwest would be classified as an international busines in much of central  Europe. As such, European customers should consider Europe-based MSPs such as Colt or Open Systems or US-based MSPs with a strong international presence such as Masergy and Aryaka. 

While an unmanaged or DIY SD-WAN is not recommended for the midsized business, Citrix, Fortinet, and VMware VeloCloud work well if the organization can commit to the required onsite IT resources.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

Small-Business-SD-WAN-Considerations

SD-WAN Recommendations for the SMB

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Key Considerations for Small and Medium-sized Businesses looking for SD-WAN

When your company is shopping for SD-WAN vendors, how many of them have asked “what is the business intent of the SD-WAN solution?” or something along those lines? CIOs and IT managers wouldn’t be looking at SD-WAN if it wasn’t intended to solve an issue with their business. However, rarely will SD-WAN vendors lead with the business intent question to start a conversation about finding the right solution. Most SD-WAN vendors are still stuck in the mode of selling on a list of product features and hardware specifications—likely because the SD-WAN industry is dominated by hardware manufacturers started by nerdy engineers.

SD-WAN Rankings helps CIOs and IT managers to select vendors based on solving business rather than technological issues. The question is: “What are you needing this SD-WAN solution to do for your business?” rather than “do you want a box that has forward error correction?”

If you are a CIO or IT manager at a small to midsized business (SMB), SD-WAN Rankings encourages you to consider these high-level options available based on your deployment scope and typical business intent:

SD-WAN is about Location, location, location

The connectivity needs for retail (e.g. dry cleaners, florists, etc.), restaurant (locally-owned but could include franchises with independent owners), and professional organizations (lawyers, realtors, etc.) obviously vary, but not too much. Generally, a CIO or IT manager at SMBs across all these industries are connecting and supporting employees who serve customers in a community or in several communities in a state. It’s often overlooked, but geographical location is important when it comes to SD-WAN connectivity.

Certain vendors’ SD-WAN deployments—usually the managed service providers and telecom carriers—deliver the best performance for on-net customers. This is because the SD-WAN hardware is “tuned” to perform best on the bandwidth provided by the managed service provider or carrier. Successful SMBs that deliver locally-focused services with employees drawn from the community are well served by this type of SD-WAN connectivity.

Speed and support

Most SMBs are cost-conscious when it comes to IT support. A good SD-WAN solution for SMB organizations should limit the need for 24/7 onsite IT and networking support. Depending on the industry, a co-managed SD-WAN solution could be an attractive option for SMBs that need tight control over customer data for regulatory reasons. The turnkey nature of a managed SD-WAN solution is most attractive to SMBs because the hardware-only setups place the support burden on the CIO and IT manager who are both already likely understaffed and overworked.

Managed SD-WAN service providers also are attractive to SMBs because they often bring their own bandwidth. Bundling managed bandwidth with SD-WAN is preferred for SMBs to reduce the overall deployment complexity. Hardware-only deployments of SD-WAN where the CIO and IT manager at an SMB buy appliances from VMware, Cisco, or Fortinet then procure the connection bandwidth between locations comes with the increased costs of 24/7 management. In more rural communities, the lack of bandwidth choice could raise costs even more and create technical issues for IT staff without the time and training required to do the job of a telecom engineer on top of their daily IT duties at the SMB.


SD-WAN Rankings Recommendations for SMBs

For the majority of SMBs in North America, a managed services provider for SD-WAN is the best bet. Depending on the locale, you should look to partner with top-tier providers such as CenturyLink, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Spectrum in the USA and Bell Canada, Shaw, and Telus in Canada. Second-tier alternatives Aryaka, Cato Networks, and Masergy are good alternatives with limited name recognition but excel at delivering SD-WAN solutions based on your organization’s business intent. For those SMBs who prefer the 100% do it yourself approach of installing and managing SD-WAN appliances, Cisco Meraki and Versa offer top-tier experiences at an affordable price point.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

Meraki goes with Microsfot Azure

Cisco Meraki SD-WAN Selects Microsoft Azure

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Cloud-based SD-WAN continues rapid adoption

Cisco unveiled a new capability for their Meraki SD-WAN product to establish simple, secure cloud connectivity for businesses. The new capability is the result of a Cisco-Microsoft collaboration to integrate Cisco Meraki SD-WAN with the Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN service. 
Cisco Meraki is the popular SD-WAN package aimed at CIOs and IT managers wanting to support so-called “lean IT environments” in an organization. Sold at a relatively low price point to mostly small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs), Cisco Meraki MX product suite combines branch connectivity, cybersecurity, management, orchestration, and automation support into a single SD-WAN appliance. By consolidating all of these various networking and security functions into a single box that configures itself and is centrally-managed from a cloud service, SMBs can use Cisco Meraki SD-WAN to connect branch office locations with very little (if any) onsite IT needed.

Why Cloud Connectivity for SD-WAN is important


The importance of cloud connectivity to Cisco Meraki cannot be overstated. Not only is it crucial for enabling the zero-touch configuration and orchestration of Cisco’s SD-WAN hardware, at a macro level the cloud is also key for controlling overall IT costs at SMBs. That’s why Cisco worked with Microsoft to integrate the Azure Virtual WAN Service into the Meraki product line. By establishing automated branch-to-Azure connectivity anywhere in the world from a Cisco Meraki SD-WAN box, IT managers at SMBs can more easily support their workloads running in Microsoft Azure cloud environments.

Azure is becoming the dark horse in the Cloud Networking Categories as businesses are reluctant to move to AWS.


Microsoft Azure is the underlying cloud infrastructure for all Microsoft productivity software used by businesses, including their extremely successful Office 365 apps and Microsoft Teams collaboration service that basically doubled their daily user count early in 2020—skyrocketing from around 40 million to close to 80 million users in less than three months. As SMBs adopt Microsoft services for their corporate users, the Azure Virtual WAN helps IT managers to provide optimized and automated branch connectivity to Microsoft cloud services. It’s a distributed cloud system, so there are multiple regional Azure points of presence acting as hubs to ensure local branches are never too many hops away from Microsoft services. Microsoft created the Azure Virtual WAN service to enable customers to access multiple Azure cloud connectivity services such as site-to-site VPN, User VPN (point-to-site), and the ExpressRoute direct cloud connections from a single operational interface.
Cisco and Microsoft partnered together on the Meraki-to-Azure Virtual WAN service means that SMBs can use their Meraki MX boxes at branch offices to get a direct connection into the Microsoft Azure cloud via an automated process. According to Cisco, the top advantages of the Meraki-to-Azure Virtual WAN integration are:

SD-WAN (Virtual WAN) Benefits for Meraki to Azure

  • Simplicity: Cisco and Microsoft co-developed the software to automate the secure connection between Cisco Meraki MX appliances at branch locations and the Azure Virtual WAN service at scale. This plays to the strength of the Meraki SD-WAN product because rather than scheduling a truck-roll for installation an IT manager at an SMB can have any employee at the branch office can plug the Meraki box into the internet connection and it automatically is configured.
  • Security: Cisco and Microsoft built secure connectivity between the branch location and the cloud into the automation workflow in a bid to optimize security and enable agility right out of the box.
  • Orchestration: Thanks to the centralized orchestration features of the Cisco Meraki SD-WAN product, IT managers can use a cloud-based user interface to make changes on the Cisco Meraki MX appliances from their offices at headquarters (or anywhere they have an internet connection) which saves time and reduces the need for IT resources at the branch.

While the Cisco Meraki SD-WAN integration with Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN is good news for SMBs invested in the Meraki and Microsoft ecosystems, the offering is not unique. In 2019, Bay Area SD-WAN startup Aryaka debuted their Azure Virtual WAN connectivity with zero-touch provisioning and big names such as Citrix, Fortinet, HP Silver Peak, and Versa soon followed with their own integration support for Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

sd-wan and ucaas

SD-WAN and Unified Communications

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SD-WAN and UC convergence has already started

SD-WAN and Unified Communications are on a crash course of convergence. Whether you using on-premise or cloud-based voice solutions, the need for reliability and SLAs are critical to enable productivity, instant messenger and presence (IM&P), are not impacted by limited bandwidth.

SD-WAN as a technology is derived to create inherent cost savings, reliability, security, and a better user experience. This convergence has accelerated as distributed workforces have continued to grow and reached critical mass with the current pandemic. The inability to travel to the office means that employees need to be able to connect remotely, leverage high quality voice and video, as well as share documents and services to continue productivity for the organization. The issue is that these solutions continue to be incredibly bandwidth intensive and require high bandwidth prioritization.

SD-WAN solves this conundrum by offering flexibility to connect any mix of traditional networking (MPLS), internet, or dedicated internet access (DIA), and VPN over public internet to provide continuity across any connection type. Additionally, SD-WAN routers can now connect to 4G and 5G wireless access points for backup or primary.

SD-WAN Providers are already partnering with UCaaS Providers

The proof is in the putting in a lot of organizations are already seeing success. What’s interesting is we see more of a hybrid approach to ask you and you can ask versus moving everything to an estimate on solutions as we stated before. We are seeing this massive movement with SD-WAN organizations like Cato partnering with UCaaS providers like RingCentral and others to provide a networking invoice solution and reliable and scalable fashion.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

flexiWAN SD-WAN growth

Open-Source SD-WAN continues growth

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flexiWAN flexes adding 1,000 SD-WAN accounts this year

The worlds first open-source SD-WAN provider flexiWAN has enjoyed massive growth and recently announced a monumental feat surpassing 1,000 account using its SaaS platform since launching in January 2020.

2020 continues to be thea year of SD-WAN and while some organizations are struggling MSPs and Service Providers are accelerating their exodus from the rigid legacy on-premise solutions.

flexiWAN has created sophisticated offerings for providers looking to embrace the open-source wave. They allow companies to deploy in a standard cloud methodology offering Shared and Dedicated environments depending on client needs. Essentially creating a self-serivce or white label solution. They also have a self-hosted solution for organizations needing to run SD-WAN on private or public cloud deployments.

“The global interest in flexiWAN fuels our journey to democratize the SD-WAN market,” said Amir Zmora, CEO & co-founder of flexiWAN. “We continue to grow the number of customers on our system by several new accounts per day accompanied by excitement of technology partners and customers looking to join our vision of an open SD-WAN platform that makes vendor lock-in a story of the past.” 

flexiWAN has an incredible community and user forum and allows users to sign up with a free account to start discovering how flexiWAN helps organizations embrace open-source SD-WAN.

SD-WAN on demand

Tucked in the press release was a very interesting feature. These SD-WAN deployment models break the rigid telecommunications 3-year contract structure allowing customers to cancel at any time. This is a ground breaking networking contract methodology that may have ripple effects through the industry as more organizations shift to cloud-based pricing.

Trusted SD-WAN Advisors

SDWAN Rankings exists to help you find the best solutions to help with your networking needs. Organizations selecting SD-WAN providers often rely on the partner community as trusted advisors to help select these networking technologies.  We can help you select a partner that will help you through vendor selection at no cost. ever. If you’d like an introduction to SD-WAN vendors or partners, let us know. 

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