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Unlocking growth opportunities in the channel with SD-WAN

By Mark Verbloot, Senior Director, Product, Solutions and Systems Engineering, Asia Pacific Region, Aruba

Organizations today are more dispersed than ever, with a growing number of connected devices outside of traditional security perimeters. To safeguard their operations, organizations are increasingly seeking out new solutions for both wide area networking (WAN) and security, such as software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN). In fact, according to Meticulous Research, the Asia Pacific SD-WAN market is expected to be the fastest growing globally.

The question for channel partners: How do you maximize the SD-WAN opportunity?

Supporting cloud-first organizations

In the past, when customers hosted most business applications in their own data centers, the practice of routing application traffic from branch locations back to the data center for security inspection was the norm. But with many workloads having moved to the cloud, it has become untenable to send traffic back to a data center because it now severely impacts application performance. The workload may reside anywhere in the public cloud, and it is extremely inefficient to traverse the WAN from a branch office to a central location, and then to the cloud.

In addition, WAN architectures based on traditional routers require IT teams to deal with a vast array of network and security equipment. In many cases, these must be configured manually using a command line interface. As organizations often lack experienced IT staff to install and maintain the equipment, expensive onsite visits become inevitable yet do nothing to support the customer’s WAN transformation journey.

In the push to accelerate their cloud migration roadmaps, customers are being confronted with the reality of requiring new solutions to securely handle the growing number of applications migrating to the cloud. SD-WAN solves many of the challenges customers face in pursuing a hybrid or multi-cloud strategy.

With advanced SD-WAN solutions today, necessary WAN functions such as routing and WAN optimization, as well as built-in next-generation firewalls, enable the streamlining of network equipment into a single appliance. By deploying an advanced SD-WAN solution, customers can improve the end-user experience by automatically steering traffic to the workload based on specific policies. Access to trusted cloud applications can be sent directly to the workload via local breakout, while access to less trusted destinations can be directed first to a cloud-delivered security service provider. Access to workloads that are still hosted in the customer’s data center will be sent directly, taking advantage of existing security systems.

Beyond next generation firewalls and secure access service edge (SASE), SD-WAN enables the implementation of zero trust network segmentation. Based on identity and role-based access control, this ensures that only approved users and devices can access specific areas of a customer’s network. With SD-WAN automation and intelligence, the network becomes self-driving, allowing for the simple implementation of business-focused application policies. This ultimately frees up workforce time so that business leaders can focus on unlocking business growth.

This shift in approach offers a huge opportunity for channel partners – particularly those who have previously sold traditional networking. It allows partners to speak to business leaders about a network modernization strategy that includes WAN and security transformation, and how SD-WAN will enable them to deliver on their broader business goals. After all, a strong approach to security is integral to any customer transformation journey.

Enhancing security advantages and eliminating latency concerns

Channel partners can deliver value to customers by paying attention to those who are not achieving consistent application performance, or who are struggling with application availability. In most cases, these factors signal the need for an SD-WAN solution.

Partners should also remember that SD-WAN offerings are not just for enterprises. In the age of hybrid working, it’s not just large branches and campuses that are being put under security strain. Space-constrained locations and remote offices also require automated, policy-based management and cloud-based security.

According to a 2022 report by IDC, moving data and applications to the cloud and connectivity solutions are among the top five technologies that Asia Pacific employees believe will drive their productivity amidst remote working.

With an advanced SD-WAN solution that is able to extend the WAN to home offices, small offices, and even temporary locations, these smaller locations can also enjoy benefits of SD-WAN and SASE, such as improved network performance and availability. In addition, customers with space-constrained home offices and ad-hoc locations without IT staff, such as retail pop-ups and mobile clinics, like these solutions because they do not require additional hardware.

Leveraging the SD-WAN momentum in the channel

One of the many benefits of advanced SD-WAN solutions is that they can be configured centrally just once and deployed with zero-touch provisioning to thousands of sites, removing the need for experienced local IT staff or on-site visits. All of this improves the performance of key applications, in turn increasing productivity and end customer satisfaction.

As organizations continue their digital transformation journey, the need for agility and security at the edge and across distributed locations will only accelerate. To fully embrace the cloud-first era and modernize both their networks and security architectures for business growth, channel partners must be prepared to capitalize on this momentum, to work with end-customers to replace their branch firewalls with an advanced SD-WAN solution, and ensure their customers are set up for security success in a dispersed and digital-first world.