FEATURE: SDN
Tata Communications offers pointers
While software-defined WAN opens up a huge raft of benefits
to any business looking to adopt it, do not underestimate
what it takes to exploit it. While people may think you just
have a box that works across the network, which will route
traffic on the fly, it is actually far more complicated than
that. The starting point is for businesses to understand the
common pitfalls.
“Networks are ten times more complex than they were ten
years ago. Back then we would have chatted to a customer
about quality of service over their MPLS network. Now they
have five times the number of applications to consider: some
on-premises, some in the cloud, some transition between,
and many of these are mission-critical. These applications
need to be secure and free of congestion or quality of service
issues,” explains Mike Winder, Senior
Vice President of Customer Service and
Operations, Tata Communications.
“CEOs must have
discussions to
decide which
time is best for
transitioning to
software-defined
networking.”
Pitfalls to avoid when going down
the SD-WAN route
1. Do not underestimate the
complexity of the network underlay:
the network underlay is a key part
of the architecture. It is complex
and often underestimated. SD-WAN
came about because businesses
wanted to make better use of their
network resources, and they want
the seamless online experience
and options. However, they are not
network experts – so they need
Distributed enterprise application architecture (Image courtesy of Juniper Networks)
to work with a partner that can
manage the complexity.
2. Making light work of defining the
policies for applications: When you start implementing
priority traffic go during busy periods? This is where the
SD-WAN today, you need to have clear visibility of all
in-depth knowledge of networks and gateways can help
applications. You need to think about what should go in
you achieve success.
which queue and when congestion occurs, what should
3. Optimising voice for SD-WAN: Architectural underlay is
take priority and, more importantly, where does the low-
vital for the overlay to work efficiently. This is especially
important when you look at unified communications
and want to take advantage of cloud enabled services.
Working with a service provider with supportive solutions
across overlay and underlay elements directly into
its public switched telephone network reduces the
headache significantly.
“Each customer
should be able
to transition to
software-defined
networking at their
own pace.”
www.intelligentcio.com
“To see the biggest return on your SD-WAN investment
and reap all the benefits it brings, you need to partner with
services experts that can manage the entire complexity
layer for you, define and roll-out the required policies and
work across your organisation to ensure seamless delivery.
This will minimise disruption and downtime in the short
term and maximise increases in efficiency, productivity and
technological capabilities in the long term,” stresses Winder. n
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