wipro.com 10 Things to Look for in Software Defined WAN With SD WAN solutions coming of age, the year 2016 is expected to be its break out year

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1 wipro.com 10 Things to Look for in Software Defined WAN With SD WAN solutions coming of age, the year 2016 is expected to be its break out year

2 SD-WAN promises to lower costs and reduce operational complexity by borrowing many of the same paradigms of SDN in data center W hile Software Defined Networking (SDN) in data centers has garnered all the attention over the last few years, with products and solutions from many incumbent network vendors and a number of startups available today, the year 2016 is widely expected to be a break-out year for Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN). Though traditional networking has always offered global scalability and resiliency, enterprises have struggled with policy based routing, centralized provisioning and management. In addition, distributed enterprises have also struggled with long lead times for MPLS deployment and high bandwidth costs which has made WANs complex and expensive to build and operate. SD-WAN promises to lower costs and reduce operational complexity by borrowing many of the same paradigms of SDN in data center to bring about easier provisioning, intelligent path selection, improved visibility into application performance and traffic analytics. While enterprises have a choice to deploy hybrid WANs or even Internet as WAN to optimize costs independent of SD-WAN technologies, the incumbent network vendors and emerging SD-WAN vendors are beginning to deliver on the promises of centralized provisioning, management and visibility functionalities that provide compelling use cases for enterprises to experiment with and eventually deploy SD-WAN in production networks. Compared to SDN in data center where network must be integrated with server virtualization, L4-7 services, automation and orchestration tools to be able to provide effective return on investments, SD-WAN can be considered as a pure network solution with minimal technology adjacencies. Therefore, the success of SD-WAN projects are expected to be much higher. 1

3 What to look for in SD-WAN solutions To gain agility and efficient utilization of WAN bandwidth through centralized provisioning and policy management, SD-WAN, as an integrated solution, must deliver on the following essential features and functionalities. Device Form Factor & Controller that enable better application Location performance under varying Edge devices should be available network conditions in both physical and virtual appliance formats. As enterprises are Routing Protocols increasingly looking at the flexibility provided by hardware and The solution must support commonly deployed protocols such as software decoupling, virtual appliances running on COTS hardware BGP towards service provider networks and OSPF towards can be integrated with other virtualized network functions to create branch networks. best-in-class network services at the WAN edge. Public cloud instances should be available to IPv6 Support With the depletion of IPv4 address seamlessly extend the WAN space, the SD-WAN solution must boundaries of enterprises adopting support IPv6 or at least have a public cloud. The WAN clearly defined IPv6 roadmap. controller should be available either on premise or on cloud to suit the needs of enterprises. Overlay & Underlay Transport The overlay network must support Path Selection Recognition or finger printing of common enterprise applications and the ability to create custom application signatures is essential partial and full-mesh topologies. The underlay transport network support should include Ethernet, 3G/4G cellular interfaces and optional support legacy transport such as T1/E1. to classify traffic flows and enable prioritized treatment of traffic based on link costs, network and application performance requirements across all available WAN links. Policy based routing has been challenging in traditional Secure Multi-Tenancy The solution must support standards-based cryptography and must provide ability to create scalable network partitioning to support networking, therefore, path quality multi-tenancy requirements to monitoring along with path symmetry are other key features address mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. 2

4 Service Insertion & Chaining The solution must provide proven mechanisms for co-existence with other network functions such as firewall, WAN optimization and voice gateway services. Enterprises that have deployed legacy voice gateways on WAN devices must carefully evaluate their options as legacy voice support may not be available from newer vendors in the market. Integration into Existing Networks The solution must offer integration mechanisms into existing networks to enable phased migrations. Non- disruptive mechanisms (e.g., in-path appliances) are preferred which enable SD-WAN devices to be added into existing networks for proof-of-concept, pilots and phased migrations. Resiliency It is important to understand what network functions are centralized to ensure traffic gets forwarded even during controller outages or non-reachability. Provisioning, Management & Reporting As the most important feature of SD-WAN, the solution must provide a single-pane-of glass management to enable zero touch provisioning, centralized policy management and enforcement, role-based access controls, application performance monitoring & diagnostics, SLA reporting, executive summaries & detailed views, traffic analytics, integration into NMS and SIEM tools, and finally, open interfaces for integration into network automation and orchestration tools. 3

5 About the author Girish Chandangoudar has over 22 years of experience in Telecom and Enterprise IT services spanning Internet Services, Network Operations, System Integration, Managed Services, Network Architecture and Technical Pre-sales. He is currently a part of Global Infrastructure Services in Wipro and responsible for network practice development and delivery enablement. Girish has wide ranging interests in networking, collaboration, and data center and cloud technologies. He is currently developing SDN solutions relevant to Wipro's customers. About Wipro Wipro Ltd. (NYSE:WIT) is a leading information technology, consulting and business process services company that delivers solutions to enable its clients do business better. Wipro delivers winning business outcomes through its deep industry experience and a 360 degree view of "Business through Technology. By combining digital strategy, customer centric design, advanced analytics and product engineering approach, Wipro helps its clients create successful and adaptive businesses. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, Wipro has a dedicated workforce of over 160,000, serving clients in 175+ cities across 6 continents. For more information, please visit wipro.com or write to us at info@wipro.com

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