Choosing the Perfect SD-WAN Vendor: A Practical Guide for Network Transformation

1. The Future of Network Transformation: A Beginner's Guide to SD- WAN Get ready for the next big thing in network transformation. Learn about the benefits and best practices in choosing the right SD-WAN vendor for your organization.

2. Key Considerations Agility Security Look for a vendor who can offer a network Security is paramount when it comes to architecture that is agile and can keep pace network transformation. Ensure that your with your rapidly changing business needs. vendor offers encryption, firewalls, and other security features. Reliability Scalability Your network is the backbone of your Your SD-WAN solution must be scalable to business. Choose a vendor with a proven accommodate current and future growth track record of reliability and network needs. uptime.

3. Assessing Vendor Technology and Capabilities Hardware and Software Topology and Networking Designs Ensure that the vendor can provide hardware and Network topology and design are critical software that meets your organization's specific components of your SD-WAN solution. Evaluate requirements. the vendor's expertise in these areas. Cloud Integration Automation and AI Cloud integration is a necessary component of Automation and AI can help speed up network modern networking solutions. Assess the processes and reduce human error. Evaluate the vendor's ability to integrate with your cloud vendor's automation capabilities and AI offering. infrastructure.

4. Vendor Pricing Models and Costs 1 2 Recurring costs Hardware costs Assess the vendor's pricing Calculate the upfront model and determine the hardware costs and evaluate recurring costs, including whether they are within subscription and budget. maintenance fees. 3 Installation and setup costs Consider the costs of installation and setup, including professional services fees, and factor them into the total cost of ownership expectation.

5. Vendor Customer Support and Service Level Agreements Service level agreements Review the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and ensure that they meet the requirements of your organization. 1 3 2 24/7 Support Technical expertise Ensure that your vendor offers 24/7 support Choose a vendor who can provide on-site and quick response times for critical issues. technical expertise or remote support to help you troubleshoot issues as they arise.

6. Case Studies: Successful SD-WAN Migrations Company A Company B Company C Challenges Challenges Challenges The company had a limited The company had highly The company was facing budget and limited IT dispersed locations with poor connectivity issues that were personnel. connectivity. impacting employee productivity. Solution Solution Solution The SD-WAN solution from The SD-WAN solution from Vendor X offered easy Vendor Y offered a perfect The SD-WAN solution from deployment and low blend of cloud integration and Vendor Z provided a reliable, maintenance, making it a automation, enabling the secure, and scalable network great fit for the company's company to efficiently architecture that solved the needs. manage its network from a company's connectivity central location. challenges.

7. Conclusion and Next Steps Conclusion Next Steps Collaboration SD-WAN solutions can provide Contact your network Work with the vendor to plan out significant benefits to transformation team to learn deployment, interact with your organizations of all sizes. Ensure how SD-WAN can solve current deployment team, support and that you carefully consider key networking problems, enhance others. Share your insights with factors such as agility, security, your business needs for the your key stakeholders. scalability, and vendor support future and bring you cost when selecting the right savings. provider for your organization.