Does the enterprise need global SD-WAN?

As more businesses migrate applications to the cloud and end users col-
aborate and share data across as-a-service platforms, its paramount for WAN managers and IT leaders to understand
how legacy networks fail in a global and cloud-based marketplace. In addition, IT leaders must plan for the limitations
of most regional SD-WAN offerings or implement a global alternative, in order for businesses to maintain productivity
and efficiency when teams collaborate and data moves across oceans and continents.

This whitepaper will introduce IT leaders to the current state of the enterprise WAN and offer suggestions for
implementation of a globalized network.

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The Wide Area Network (WAN) is the primary way that organizations connect their facilities so that employees in all
locations have access to the applications they need to do their jobs. In the past, those applications were all housed in
a primary data center, although recent years have seen the emergence of multiple third-party providers whose apps
have become central to todays business world while being housed in the cloud and delivered as-a-service. The
WAN has a wide-ranging impact on the productivity and success of the business. For example:

The outage of a WAN link can bring business functions to a halt as one or more facilities go offline.

As WAN links are backhauled to reach third-party applications and platforms in the cloud, they can cause
degraded application performance, which negatively impacts business processes.

The WAN can also be a major source of security vulnerabilities.

The current business environment is characterized by dramatic and constant change, especially around the IT space.
Those changes include:

The movement on the part of most businesses to adopt digital business initiatives.

Broad adoption of public cloud computing services.

Deployment of WAN solutions based on new architectural approaches.

The dramatic increase in the number and sophistication of security attacks.

This whitepaper will discuss the changes listed above and will identify a set of evaluation criteria that organizations
should use to ensure that adopted WAN solutions can respond to the rapidly changing environment.

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IT organizations are continually told they need to align their activities with the companys key business initiatives. Part
of the challenge in creating that alignment is the speed at which both businesses and their technologies evolve.

One fundamental change that is currently having a significant impact on businesses is the movement on the part of
organizations of all sizes to transform themselves to keep pace with digital business. An article in Forbes defined
digital business as The creation of new business designs by blurring the digital and physical worlds. It promises to
usher in an unprecedented convergence of people, businesses, and things that disrupt existing business models
even those born of the Internet and e-business eras.

In an article entitled Strategic principles for competing in the digital age, McKinsey stated that:

The digital technologies underlying these competitive thrusts may not be new, but they are being
used to new effect. Staggering amounts of information are accessible as never beforefrom
proprietary big data to new public sources of open data. Analytical and processing capabilities have
made similar leaps with algorithms scattering intelligence across digital networks, themselves often
lodged in the cloud. Smart mobile devices make that information and computing power accessible to
users around the world.

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 While the McKinsey article addressed some of the ways technology is impacting business, another article, Digital
Business Strategy: Toward a Next Generation of Insights, discussed how the digital business movement suggests
that IT organizations should no longer seek merely to align their activities with their companys key business initiatives;
instead, they should become the drivers of digital business strategy:

Over the last three decades, the prevailing view of information technology strategy has been that it
is a functional-level strategy that must be aligned with the firms chosen business strategy. Even
within this so called alignment view, business strategy directed IT strategy. During the last decade,
the business infrastructure has become digital with increased interconnections among products,
processes, and services. Across many firms spanning different industries and sectors, digital
technologies (viewed as combinations of information, computing, communication, and connectivity
technologies) are fundamentally transforming business strategies, business processes, firm
capabilities, products and services, and key interfirm relationships in extended business networks.
Accordingly, we argue that the time is right to rethink the role of IT strategy, from that of a functional-
level strategy aligned but essentially always subordinate to business strategy to one that
reflects a fusion between IT strategy and business strategy. This fusion is herein termed digital
business strategy.

What we can take from these quotes is:

The rise of digital, cloud, and mobile computing and data sharing is on the rise, and will define the future
of global business.

The contributors who prepare their organizations for and help their organizations navigate through this
shift will become more than just administrators; they will become major players in defining and supporting
global business strategy.

As such, the Information Technology leaders tasked with updating the WAN to support global business activities must
be aware of where technology has been and where its going, so that they can make the case for getting out in front of
digital transformation.

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Todays enterprise WAN technology is at least twenty years old, with the vast majority of enterprise WANs
comprising just two WAN services: MPLS and the public Internet, although MPLS is more prevalent given its
security and reliability.

The 2017 Guide to WAN Architecture and Design (The Guide) identified the concerns that network
organizations have with using both MPLS and the public Internet. Those concerns, listed in descending order
of importance, are shown in Table 1.

MPLS is the primary WAN structure used by most large

enterprises, so it bears scrutiny in the context of this list.

As shown in Table 1, despite the fact that packet loss and jitter
are mostly solved for by MPLSs stable data transmission,
uptime and latency are still top concerns for networking
professionals. MPLSs stable data transmission is susceptible to
the laws of physics across large distances, making latency an
issue for global organizations.

Table 1

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In order to solve for MPLSs latency problem, organizations must deploy WAN Optimization to ensure that throughput remains
high, and end users experience few negligible lags in performance. This is especially critical for global organizations looking to
create seamless business scenarios.

Along the same lines, cost and the lead time for implementation of new circuits are major concerns for global organizations
when it comes to MPLS. As such, MPLS presents great barriers to deployment and scalability. Currently, even moving to a new
office across the street can mean a lead time up to six months for a new link to be deployed. For remote geographies, such as
in China or India, new MPLS link deployment could take many more months or even years.

The cost of deployment is not just for the physical link; it also includes the cost of WAN Optimization Controllers to solve for the
potential latency and uptime issues, SD-WAN boxes for Internet connectivity (discussed below), and IT resources to maintain
and monitor the network.

In addition, network visibility is clouded under MPLS. Because MPLS is delivered as connectivity without visibility, network
managers and IT directors lack the ability to report on details of network performance without support from additional software
which makes optimization and strategic planning difficult.

In line with this concern, the Guide contains the results of a survey question in which the respondents were asked to rate the
visibility that their network organization has into their WAN for troubleshooting problems related to network and/or application
performance degradation. Their responses are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 indicates that only a small percentage

(17%) of network organizations have all of the
visibility they need to effectively troubleshoot
WAN performance problems. As companies
continually increase their reliance on the WAN in
order to support critical business processes and
initiatives, such as the movement to transform
into a digital business, the inability of the network
organization to effectively troubleshoot the WAN
will increasingly have a negative impact on those
critical processes and initiatives.

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While MPLS may represent the best option for creating a secure and reliable network, it no longer wins over the
public Internet on direct connection to 98% of business applications living in cloud or SaaS environments.

And as digital transformation drives the future of business, more and more applications and platforms have and will
continue to drive toward the cloud.

MPLS has no direct link to cloud-based platforms like the public Internet does; however, the public Internet causes
problems that MPLS was meant to solve in the first place.

It is possible to purchase direct connects from MPLS into certain applications and platforms, but costs begin to add up
as disparate providers each require a standalone connection and, even so, only two percent of applications are
available for direct connection as yet.

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In order to comprehend the value of a Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) solution, it is important to understand a
couple primary characteristics of traditional enterprise networks.

One of those characteristics is that the traditional approach to designing a branch office WAN features T1 access to a
service providers MPLS network at each branch office and one or more higher speed links at each data center. In this
design, which has been in place for roughly fifteen years, it is common to have all or some of a companys Internet
traffic backhauled to a data center before being handed off to the Internet. One of the limitations of backhauling data
and application traffic is that since it transits through the MPLS network before being handed off to the Internet, it adds
both cost and delay.

The Guide contained the results of a survey question in which the respondents were asked to indicate how much of
their companys traffic is backhauled. Their responses are shown in Figure 3.

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As we can see from this chart, half of companies backhaul more than 60% of their traffic through MPLS. This
conclusion indicates that network organizations are still relying heavily on the traditional approach to designing a
branch office network.

The other primary characteristic of traditional enterprise networks is that, until recently, all of the key components of
the IT infrastructure (i.e., computing, storage, networking) were hardware-centric. Network components (i.e. switches,
routers, WAN optimization controllers, Application Delivery Controllers, etc.) have traditionally been based on
dedicated appliances, and each device is itself based on dedicated hardware such as Application Specific Integrated
Circuits (ASICs).

The ASICs that provide the network functionality evolve slowly, and the evolution of ASIC functionality is under the
control of the appliance provider. Those appliances are proprietary and are each configured individually, so tasks,
such as provisioning, change management, and de-provisioning, are very time consuming and error-prone.

The broad adoption over the last several years of server and storage virtualization has transitioned both the compute
and storage components of the IT infrastructure such that they are no longer hardware-centric. The newer, but rapidly
expanding, deployment of Software Defined Networking (SDN) in both the data center and the WAN marks the
beginning of enterprise networks that are no longer hardware-centric.

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Applying SDN concepts to the WAN produces what is referred to as an SD-WAN. SD-WANs, which represent a
fundamentally new way of implementing branch office networks, have the following characteristics:

The control of the network is centralized in a device that is referred to as an SDN controller

One of the roles of the SDN controller is to implement policy management

Management tasks, such as configuration and provisioning, are automated

Multiple WAN links in an active-active configuration are supported

WAN Optimization may or may not be supported

Another key characteristic of an SD-WAN is the ability to dynamically load balance traffic over multiple WAN links and
to select the best path based on a combination of policy and network characteristics. This characteristic potentially
enables network organizations to reduce the cost of their WAN by replacing expensive MPLS bandwidth with relatively
inexpensive Internet bandwidth.

There are, however, some disadvantages associated with SD-WANs. For example, in most cases, SD-WAN solutions
only provide a device at the edge that offers best-effort access to cloud-based applications, still includes expensive
MPLS bandwidth and does not provide any on-site security functionality.

In addition, in many (if not most) instances, edge-based SD-WAN solutions are implemented on a Do-It-Yourself (DIY)
basis, whereby the IT department of any given organization is responsible for all of the planning, design,
implementation, and ongoing management of their WAN. If the network organization doesnt have the requisite WAN
skills, it is likely to implement these SD-WAN solutions in a sub-optimal way, if at all.

From a regional perspective, this may be fine, but from a global point of view, edge-based SD-WAN solutions cannot
solve the latency and throughput issues of the middle mile. In addition, it adds the problem of packet loss and jitter
due to congestion on the public Internet. Therefore, while edge-based SD-WAN solves the cloud connectivity issue, it
does not provide a true MPLS alternative that creates a viable network option for digital businesses.

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The US is home to a large number of global companies. For example, every year Forbes creates an annual ranking,
referred to as the Fortune Global 500, of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. At the current
time, over a quarter of the companies in the Global 500 are headquartered in the US.

The Wells Fargo International Business Indicator suggests that interest in doing business globally is unlikely to
diminish any time soon. According to that Indicator, 87% of US companies agree that international expansion is
needed for long-term growth.

And this does not just apply to large organizations; per US News, half of the nations small businesses will be involved
in international trade by 2018.

A global business performs key business functions in multiple countries. For example, consider a hypothetical
company that has its headquarters in the US, does R&D in both the US and Israel, and performs manufacturing in
China and the US. The company has major distribution hubs in Hong Kong, Holland, and the US. Their data centers
are hosted in the UK, the US, and Singapore. The regional sales offices are located in six different countries, including
South Africa. All of the companys key business processes run over the companys global WAN.

The outage of a link or poor application performance can create huge problems downstream for a globally distributed
organization such as the example above, leading to a slowdown in productivity and a potential loss of earnings as a
result.

When choosing a WAN, a global company has all of the concerns that a domestic company would have. For example,
similar to a domestic company, a global company would want all of the previously discussed benefits that result from
moving away from a traditional, hardware-centric approach to networking and adopting a software-centric approach.
However, a global company has some unique concerns to include when evaluating WAN solutions.

For example, if a WAN were contained entirely in the US, the round trip delay should be less than 50ms. In contrast, a
WAN that connects users in South Africa with applications that are housed in the US would experience a round trip
delay of roughly 300 to 350ms. While a delay of 50ms may or may not impact application performance, a delay of 300
ms or more would almost definitely impact application performance and hence have a negative impact on the
companys key business processes.

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Considering what it takes for a WAN to support business requirements in general, combined with the unique
characteristics of a global business yields, the following list contains key characteristics that a global business should
look for in a global SD-WAN solution:

Secure, high performance access to cloud and SaaS applications

WAN Optimization

Short deployment intervals

End-to-end multi-layered security functionality

Multiple active-active links

End-to-end visibility

Reduced complexity

Zero CapEx

In evaluating MPLS alternatives and replacements, IT leaders should consider a software-defined global SD-WAN
that offers the following:

Secure, high-performance access to cloud applications:

Instead of hybridizing your network or paying extra for direct connects into one-off applications, seek a
network that contains cloud and SaaS connectivity as a default.

WAN Optimization:
Overcome performance issues like latency without adding costs and complexity by ensuring your network
has embedded WAN Optimization.

Holistic control of the entire network:

In order to create a WAN under the current conditions, global businesses can end up having to interact
with multiple communications service providers. A new solution should eliminate the need to manage
multiple contracts and vendors by enabling a single global solution.

Short deployment intervals:

In many parts of the world it can take several months or more to get an MPLS circuit installed. Look for
software-defined networks that can scale quickly and on-demand without compromising security and
performance.

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 End-to-end multi-layered security functionality:
The old model of providing security just at the perimeter of a company is not satisfactory anymore. Expect
your network provider to encrypt data over the middle mile, and not just at the edge.

Multiple active-active links:

Data replication increases both throughput and availability. Allow your end users to quickly access data no
matter where in the world they are located.

End-to-end visibility:
When a problem does occur it is critical to be able to quickly troubleshoot the problem and minimize the
impact on the business. A built-in platform for visibility can help your IT team quickly identify and solve
problems, as well as create opportunities for strategic planning.

Reduced complexity:
One of the primary ways that an organization can minimize the complexity that is associated with their
WAN is to move away from a DIY approach and to adopt a fully managed WAN solution.

Zero CapEx and Alternatives to MPLS pricing:

While the Internet provides more flexible pricing and no CapEx, a better global alternative should not
sacrifice QoS, performance, security, etc. over cost.

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While the current business climate has IT moving from purely administrative function to a more strategic one, it is
important to ensure that IT activities align with or prepare the way for their companys key business initiatives or take
more of a leadership role in developing and implementing a digital business strategy.

Regardless of whether your organization is at this point or is still moving toward a digital strategy, it is important that
the enterprise WAN provides the proper connection and performance required by all of the organizations employees,
partners and suppliers around the world. If the enterprise WAN is not performing well, neither are the companys
business processes.

The current approach to branch office networking has been in place for roughly 15 years. Some of the limitations of the
current approach are the cost and inflexibility of MPLS, the performance issues associated with the public Internet, and
the lack of effective troubleshooting capabilities. In addition, there are use cases, such as providing secure, high
performing access to public cloud providers, that didnt exist when this technology entered widespread use 15 years
ago. These use cases are difficult, if not impossible, to support with the traditional branch office network design.

Until recently, all components of IT were hardware-centric. However, the broad adoption over the last several years of
server and storage virtualization has shifted both the compute and storage components of the IT infrastructure away
from a hardware-centric deployment.

The adoption of SDN concepts in both the data center and the WAN marks the beginning of enterprise networks no
longer being hardware-centric. Part of the value of an SD-WAN is that tasks such as configuration and provisioning,
which are very labor intensive in a traditional network, are centralized and automated. In addition, organizations can
implement effective, end-to-end policy by leveraging the functionality contained in the SDN controller. Yet traditional
SD-WAN still falls short of expectations when deployed as a global business solution.

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In the current environment, companies of all sizes run global operations, and the ongoing globalization of business is
only expected to increase. Therefore, to become a strategic business partner to your organization, it is important to
ensure that your WAN can handle the ongoing and increasing demands while ensuring that all end-users are able to
remain or become productive, efficient, and connected. Given that the WAN challenges that a global business faces
are much more demanding than the traditional WAN challenges, it is important to invest in a global SD-WAN solution
that provides all of the features outlined above.

To discover how Aryaka is transforming IT leaders into strategic business partners, contact us for a proof of concept
of Aryakas global SD-WAN today.

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 Aryaka is transforming how global enterprises connect
sites and users worldwide and use mission-critical
applications to support modern business execution
demands. Aryakas Global SD-WAN combines a
purpose-built private network, SD-WAN, optimization
and acceleration techniques, connectivity to cloud
platforms, and network visibility in a single solution that
is delivered as a service.

Give it a try to experience the benefits for yourself.

Sign up for a Free Trial.
Questions? Email sales@aryaka.com or
give us a call at 1.877.727.9252.
For information on other products, services, use
cases or customer success, visit www.aryaka.com.

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