By Dan Baldwin, ICTA Executive Director
2017 Copyright Protected
Businesses want their multiple offices to connect together over a WAN (wide area network) as easily as the their LAN (local area network) connects computers together in a single-location office.
To make this happen, business IT managers need to implement one or more of the following technologies:
SD-WAN (software defined wide area network),
VPN (virtual private network),
MPLS (multi-protocol label switching), and/or
P2P (point-to-point)
P2P is one of the older technologies that physically connect two computers directly to one another without being "switched" though a cloud network.
VPN connects multiple locations to each other over the public internet using "black boxes" at each location.
MPLS connects multiple locations to each other over a private network.
SD-WAN combines a bit of P2P, VPN & MPLS into a new "magic mix" that provides "the best of all worlds".
Following is a checklist that any business can use to understand how to know which solution is best for their situation.
All this content is copyright protected to ICTA (Information & Communications Technology Association). You you'd like to use it or re-publish it you need to get written permission by sending an email to [email protected].
Presentation Outline
SD-WAN Subject Matter Experts
Brad Carrell, Strategic Telecom Partners, Kansas City MO, 913-735-0499
Greg Ottensmeyer, TelephoNET, Baltimore, MD 410 499-4734
Checklist Questions
1. Multiple Offices Include
-
Other brick & mortar locations
-
Home offices
-
Laptop access on the road (hotels, coffee shops, airports, etc)
-
Cloud server locations
2. Connecting What to What?
3. What’s a VPN?
4. What’s MPLS
5. What’s Point-to-Point?
6. How’s SD-WAN the Same, Better or Different?
-
Path Selection (2 circuit)
-
Session Defined (2 circuit)
-
Packet Optimization (2 circuit) Cloud component or all HW (where’s orchestrator?)
-
Cloud MPLS (1 circuit) Aryaka
7. Is the SD-WAN “magic” mostly Hardware, Software or Carrier Circuits, or???
8. Is there Such Thing as “Do-It-Yourself” SD-WAN with Generic Components?
9. Can In-house IT or Outsourced MSP Build & Manage SD-WAN?
10. Is it a Capital Expense Like an Old PBX or a Operational Expense Like a Phone Bill?
SD-WAN Battle Card (Friend, Foe or ???)
Equipment & Technology Vendors
Mushroom Networks
Teloip
Cybera
Riverbed
Aryaka
Velocloud
Viptela
CloudGenix
Silver Peak
Talari
Versa Networks (CenturyLink, Comcast)
Carrier Vendors
ZeroOutages
AireSpring
MegaPath
Fusion
SpectroTel
CenturyLink
Global Capacity
Windstream/Earthlink
MetTel
EarthLink
Granite - Velocloud
Hypercore - Velocloud
Sprint - Velocloud
AT&T - Velocloud
Master Agency Vendors
Telarus, **
Intelisys *
MicroCorp
WTG, ** Slide Deck
TBI *
Avant
Rough Transcript
M1
Oh this is Dan Baldwin and today we have our how to buy and
sell and manage. And we're going to talk about Esti today and the title of
our content piece is how to connect multiple remote office cloud networks via
POS VPN and SD whan or what we officially know is the cloud
to speak with us today we have to S-D away on subject matter experts read Carroll with
strategic telecom partners out of Kansas City Missouri and Greg Arden's Meyer of
telephone at out of Baltimore Maryland. Gentlemen I appreciate your being with us. Before we start
today can you just give us a brief overview 30 seconds of how long you've been in the industry
and what you do with your business. Brad I'll go with you first.
M2
Hi Brad Crowl strategic telecom partners been in the business since
2000 worked directly for major telcos as well
as major cable companies before becoming a
carrier neutral consultant some more or less what we do as
we go in and and partner with I.T. departments and help them
retrofit their entire environment.
M3
Great. And Greg tell us how you got in the business and how long you've been doing it.
M4
Hi Greg I was smarter than that. Twenty two years operating. Less than that.
As President we provide phone systems and bandwidth
phone service voice data and
we specialize in sorto.
M6
Great. Great. All right well we're moving on to connecting multiple
locations. And before we get into the different technologies as
VPN and SD When Let's talk about what the multiple offers is I
mean if you only had to work in one place and you never work outside and you're not connecting
anything outside you know you're not really probably needing to connect multiple locations.
Brad where do people start when they're talking about collecting connecting multiple
locations and needing VPN SD. Or anything else in your
experience.
M2
Well you know usually we're running into people that have either a
VPN setup that they're managing themselves or some version of carrier managed IP
VPN or MPO us. So the challenge today for them is to figure out how to take
the next step whether to go to another city when solution with two or more Internet connections at
each site or whether or not to do a hybrid when they're their MPO or some place
and add a SD wind component with what the Internet connection has their second out.
M6
And Greg with your clients I mean how many connections are are they
needing. When they start talking about VPN or SD When is it just you know a main
office in a home office or do they need three or more separate locations before they're
really looking at these solutions.
M4
Well it's interesting at least one entity where the provider says that they
can improve services in a single location with a single
broadband line. However most people will
benefit immensely by converting and then the
last. Or we can work to the new SD technology.
M6
And connecting What would our second bullet point. We're talking servers.
What sort of services are these people connecting in the different locations or are they
connecting to things in the cloud that require VPN and SD when
Brad was trying to do well.
M2
It's really a custom mix depending on the Depending on the cost burn how many locations they
have some customers. Most of their traffic that they're trying to optimize
is going back to one of their their Tuhoe sites to their primary
production or their backup production. Or you have other customers that are trying to move more stuff
to the cloud. And in understanding that is the first part to trying to
understand which which Esti winner or impale us or VPN solution
makes the most sense for them.
M14
Great. And Gregers your your experience similar there.
M4
Yes. It's the way it is for the purpose of providing
several things for integration of multiple
circuits packet sharing load balancing between those circuits and
that of course also fell over in the events of one of the circuits fail they'll take over
the duties of the other.
M8
Great. Well let's go into a little bit of the history about how
businesses have been connecting multiple locations. Now my understanding is it
started out with VPN migrated to MBA class and you know had lots
of point to point in there. Can you share with us Brad. Is this the
migration that you've seen VPN ambulance and point to point and then into SD When
is the fourth iteration.
M2
Yeah. I would say that's accurate. You know point two points are still commonly used
between data centers. Customers have in the
past move from VPN towards MPO us and actually starting to see a trend back to
VPN as customers were taking the first step a move away from a one
carrier approach. And then at this point you know
everyone is kind of taking take their time to try to figure out which the way in solution
makes the most sense for their business. So there's a big transition going on.
M8
And Greg give us a little bit of background on the
security because a lot of people think well you know I'm connected to the Internet. That
means I'm connected to everything but VPN emulous and
point to point. It really comes down to security where it may or may not
ever touch the Internet. Can you tell us explain how the security is really wrapped into these three
products.
M4
Well the VPN you're tumbling a specific path
with and most probably a public circuit.
M12
And within the last you're getting a private network
that would be configured on a you know business
point to point band in a specific network generally with a single
carrier provider because it's the carriers provider or carrier
providers equipment their routers that are tweaked to provide
the private transmission of data between and among
all the locations.
M9
Now and Brad is this correct to say that point of point is the
most secure NPL as is probably the second most secure
because it's almost a private network or on a private carrier.
M7
And then the VPN is kind of mimicking
that.
M14
MP less like security but is using it over public internet circuits is that
correct. Or what did I get wrong there.
M2
Well I think they're all pretty secure. And what a point the point is is
really really varies a lot. A lot of providers are telling you they're providing a point to
point. But if you dig into the weeds a little but it's really an inline circuit to have a virtual
component to it. And at that point it's not really too much different than MPO us
because it's going through the cloud or internal cloud infrastructure. They're all secure.
You know that the difference is going to be you know how many sites have an internet connection
component. So if if a VPN impale us for point to point all
lead back to one or two locations then that's where you need to have one or two
firewalls or a cloud based firewall and then peel us a VPN
solution. One of the changes that people are working through now
is when moving to an SD when they're going to need a firewall wall there in points.
And that's a different challenge for them. So there's a real
component there with with with different
providers whether or not they're providing a basic firewall or a next gen firewall
inside their SD away in boxes at those points.
M8
And then Greg before we launch into the whole S-D when if it's the same
or different Can you give us a little background. When a client calls you
and they have a multiple location application they're trying to connect all up
does some situations that the customer have.
M9
Will it drive him into a point a point or an empty glass or a
VPN or there's some chance customer challenges or application that automatically
say oh VPN or go point to point or 0 MP s.
M4
OK good question. That's right. And my wife illuminates a
little bit particularly with a point to point connection. In the old days it used to be
two copper wires that were physically running between those two locations.
But as Brad said today it's so it's all configured on the network
through. I don't want to get too too
technical but that's all it's virtual. So within this
the way we should make clear at this point
that the when is not going to replace a VPN or
a POS or point to point but rather it may use
those in other types of circuits for instance broadband
types that are delivered on you know fiber or cable business type services.
So it's going to put all these this bandwidth together in a
single box and then mitigate or group
that data so that it is delivered in the most efficient manner.
M7
Okay.
M13
And Brad can you expand upon that when a client calls you today
or calls you tomorrow and says I have this business problem where I have this new
application and I want to make sure it's all connected correctly. Were you
automatically think VPN or MPO class or point a point
and or SD and layered over the top. How do you know what
problems match up to what solutions or is are they all
blended like you said.
M2
Well part of that is a conversation trying to determine what they
have now and where they want to go. So it's really custom there's not really a standard
recommendation everybody is getting. I still think point to point services
whether it's you know depending on the customer the bandwidth needs are the best way
to connect two data centers together because low latency helps keep their storage
area networks running correctly or you know whatever they're doing to replicate data.
But outside of that like office connectivity I think there's
just a huge driver justification to stop using
VPN and impale us in move towards an SD weight environment. And for most
customers that has to do with how big they are. Most of my
customers have you know more than 30 locations with some of them with over a
hundred in and for them they're not ready to move away from impale
us yet. It's just not practical. They have to move slow. Smaller customers
with with a few sites on the ones I have I mean they're a lot easier to move to a full two
Internet SD went solution now. It really just depends on on
how large they are and what makes the most sense for their you know 2
3 4 5 year plan depending on on what they are looking to do in the future.
M1
Great. Well we're going to stick with you. Moving on to item number 6
here we've alluded to it a little bit where we're talking about traffic shaping and we're talking
about multiple internet connections. And what are their backup are they're working
together in concert. Can you share with us now how. SD When is the same or
better or different. I've been VPN and Bulos and point to points
and I talk about these four different types of the way you helped
define earlier Okay.
M20
Now that's that's that's where this conversation really gets really
gets fun. So you know basically VPN is
protocol based and they basically use the same protocol. Doesn't matter
what underlying carriers you have or carrier you have VPN is VPN
MPO us is also protocol based.
M2
You know what you're going to get. It's that MPO us network that matter what provider you go with.
Point to points you just have to dig through with the carriers to determine if they're actually giving
you a private line. That's a direct path between point A and Point Z
or whether or not they're giving you a virtual circuit where you know there's a
middle mile there somewhere that's going through their cloud. You know self-healing
architecture you know getting into which one is better really isn't
related to this conversation. SD When you know there's like 30
different flavors Asti Wang. So what we're trying to do here is try to help
explain that because customers really get lost in this specially
with the traditional hardware vendors that they've been using for years like a riverbed
or a Cisco or a Meraki that all have their flavors of it. They
really have to take the time now to understand what the other options are
because there are some really really strong players out there that are
not the traditional gigantic hardware vendors that customers been using their whole careers.
So it kind of boils down to four different basic flavors of how to do it.
There's path selection which is accomplished a couple different ways. You've got it's
really closer to what's what's been around for a long time with with fail
over basically. There's a couple different ways that people will do pass selection. It's either
you're either defining by application whether it goes down one path or the
other path. If you have two circuits and another one the
companies use as kind of a round robin approach for the alternate what path they go down at. And you
know that doesn't always work if one of the circuits is kill us. That's more intended for a two internet
connection type of situation. So past
selection requires fail over if if one path is down. So it's pretty close
although a little better than what's been around for a long time. Then you get
session session session selection where basically
the BSD when provider is determining per session which
which pathic goes down. And then when the session is over and a new session starts it
determines again which path is better for about for that particular session. Then the third
flavor is packet optimization and that is that's
different because the software in the devices or the firmware in the devices is making
decisions on packet by packet or in groups of maybe 20 packets
depending on who the provider is which path is the best one for each piece of
traffic. And you can also optimize the application as well. So if you decide hey I want all my
Netflix to go out the cable modem you know you can do things like that. But in
general you optimize best by letting letting the software make
all those decisions for you with with application rules
so that with all these what they're trying to do is move away from having the
customer have to worry about all the details and just get to application management.
But but the three but those three different ways on how to do that really really dictate a lot.
What kind of performance and uptime and reliability and redundancy someone's going to get out of our
project and then the last option is kind of a kind of an emerging
one where there's you know at least one provider Arriaga who has what I'd call a cloud
MPO us what they're doing is they've got 23 I believe
23 global backbone nodes and they optimize.
They basically do when optimization between those nodes. So it's the middle mile which is the
long part of a global network that they optimize. And then all the
customer has to do instead of buying a global impis less network from one provider that may have
expensive circuits and a lot of countries can have our yaka do all the middle mile
management and then or somebody like GARRIOCH if there's others out there and
then all they have to do is get local Internet connections for each of their endpoints and the value to that is
huge for customers that need that kind of infrastructure because a lot of
times their local office can get good tech support from you know the only
option might be a microwave ISP in the middle of this country and
having a carrier go through all their processes to get to about that final last mile provider
can be a real challenge.
M7
And so they're very different right now.
M8
The vendors out there offering up.
M6
SD When are they. Are they one of these four or are they Hiren's
were they're offering multiples. What is your experience there.
M2
You know you know I'm I really can't think of anybody who
falls into more than one of these categories. I could be
wrong but just trying to think through the list of you know 20 or so that I can think through I can't think of
anybody who falls into more than one of these categories. Well we don't have right
now is somebody who is doing packet optimization and weighing optimization
in the traditional way in optimization sense at the same time as those kind of compete with each
other.
M9
Greg Now bread is defined what he sees as these four
different types of SD winds. Are those the same four that you're seeing in your
experience or are you seeing different ones.
M4
Well Fred does that very well and I think his information pertains perhaps to larger
networks and there's a different segment of the market that on
the smaller networks that find them as having at least two locations and
maybe up to five or six locations. One of the issues and probably the driver
is that you know POS circuit is going to run you for
500 hours. The way it's you one or are bonded to one of the three
megabits. And at the same time they're looking at cable based
files type connections that are offering 100 or 150
megabits. Yes there is a synchronous many times and
they're looking at prices around 200 250. So they're they're
wondering you know how come I can buy a whole lot more bandwidth
or half the price and then they find out that there are some
deficiencies with that bandwidth for instance when it goes down. Maybe they're not so
timely reacting to repair that maybe that search is being
shared among a community of users and they'll notice
more difficulty with that search. So as the wind blows and very
well for the smaller market because you can use these
you know cable based bandwidth
connections and the SD wind will mitigate
between the two and provide you know continuity of service and
you and you're describing mostly the path selection where you have a piece of gear you
know him was grooming or choosing two different paths for the smaller
customer that can afford you know like you said a co-ax or files type connection.
Exactly. Or is here the box here this is investing Winbox.
And typically it the Winbox is the inverse of a router a router would have
you know one or two connections and multiple LAN
connections. That's the way old box would have
maybe just one LAN connection and multiple wind connections
because it's going a notice if the class goes down that's going to put all the traffic over the
files the words. And I notice when you know voice or data is coming across the
circuit that's going to optimize transmission based on
the circuit that will provide the best performance.
M9
Great. And that's awesome that leads us into our second
point when we're having the vendors talk to us about their S-D when magic
is it mostly hardware. Is it mostly software carrier circuits.
M10
Where is the magic that people are really talking about Bradman's last
Fred we'll start with you.
M2
Yeah that's the fun part because everybody does call them magic boxes which is hilarious. But
that's kind of what they are. I mean it's a it's a mix of hardware software and firmware.
You know part of the magic is is just the the amount of simplicity
that a customer can realize and their network infrastructure by making this change because
those magic boxes at the at the office in points are often
replacing traditional you know Cisco router wash and say Cisco
but you know Cisco Adarand Juniper whoever replaces the router
replaces the need for a separate firewall appliance and also
replaces and in some cases you know way an optimization
box. So the magic can you know when those hardware
refresh budgets you know are made you can literally knock those in
half or even even 75 percent and get get a better
solution than having all those separate appliances. So the magic is
not just in the routing which is what we've talked about mostly so far
but it's also in simplifying the infrastructure and simplifying the
ability to the with the hardware and the software to
do policy. Policy mapping for their applications.
M7
And Greg go ahead Brad. Here's something else.
M2
I was just going to answer the rest. The question is going to say I mean I don't think there's a lot of magic in the
carrier circuits other than you know give customers the option to use
low cost broadband end and get performance out of those
circuits like they like they're used to with more of the dedicated POS type
connections and you showed us that box.
M11
But when we're thinking about black boxes we're really talking about some
sort of decision making software within the black box right.
M4
Yes. And within the cloud control of that particular SD
web provider.
M11
So then all we're talking about software and it could be software
that's at the edges they call it in a premise based piece of equipment or
software that's in the network whether it's the carrier's network or you
know maybe the box vendor has something in the cloud
that complements it. Is that correct or is it only the carriers that have the magic
in the cloud.
M4
Now it's it's like Fred said when he take off the various methods.
There are many different ways to configure a optimal solution for
a client and they all do things a little bit
differently. And that's good because you know it
addresses different segments of the market and different customer requirements.
So right now it is very much magic. In
fact I was told that they use of W S S M
technology and that's the way it sounds.
M10
Weird Science and freaking magic.
M4
Consequently they all consider it secret
and they use their own secret technology
that they will tell you the fact but maybe not want to share the minutiae of
exactly what we do.
M1
Great. Well before we get into talking about the individual magicians
Let's talk about bullet point eight. Is is it really something that you can do
yourself with generic components or you know in the old days you go to Radio
Shack buy all the pieces that you wanted and and invent your own magic. Is it something that you
can do yourself with generic components said Greg or do you actually need these
vendors to larger or smaller degree I'm interested to hear what Grant has
to say about that.
M12
But I asked that question of many Esti when
manufacture's and providers and the question was how long will it
be before the customer can go to RadioShack or you know best
buy and purchase a device that will do what is the way it does.
You know you plug in a couple of different connections a little auto configure and
there is no monthly fee associated with the wind
providers. And I think that's a question that's coming up later.
M1
And Brad what is your experience here. Kind of leads us into item number nine should
in-house I.T. people or outsource assemblers please be building these
generic boxes or do you have to stick with name brand components.
M2
Yeah I don't I don't see how anybody can do it yourself right now
because you know but do it yourself approach would be base would still be like. Active. Passive
fail over active active fell over. I mean the the software
making these routing decisions you know you need EDI devices on both ends.
M13
So will this go into question number 10 because that's really what a lot of
end users want to know. Are we talking. Is it the solution mostly at
cap x or is it an optics. Am I going to solve it with the one time capital
equipment purchase of a lot of equipment or am I really looking at a month to month
utility.
M14
Which way do you see this going both ways or is it starting one way or going
someplace else Greg.
M4
All he is the West Coast I've seen so far our operational expenses.
There are monthly fees in which the provider will provide
services. Maybe they'll tweak or change some settings.
They'll certainly monitor it for performance. Maybe
they'll provide you with statistics and certainly they should be
talking to you about how to continually optimize your network
as your experience spread is mostly turning into objects as opposed to a
cap ex where abuse has grown by a bunch of firewalls and BVM together.
M2
Well I'm actually seeing both kinds. You know there's definitely
options out there that have a cap x component and then the
optics would just be the license. And then even within the same vendor
sometimes they have an impact on models while the pending If you want to rent the equipment instead
of purchase it out right. So so there's choices along those lines
you know depending on what what the customer's preferences. And I would like to
answer the previous question a little better. Real quick. So one of the things in the previous
question was kind of an MSP do that in the answers. Yes because some of the
providers have a NMSP model know what to them Go in and
resell if they want to own the billing to the customer. You know typical
situation like that might be a data center provider that has an
in-depth managed services piece where they do consulting for customers. It's easy for them to go
ad the outsourced MSP model because they can just add the SD wing component to
their portfolio of solutions.
M3
So that leads into an important question. If a business end user is being
offered to SD and from their managed services provider on the MSP bill would
it be appropriate for them to ask which Tecno which as the wind technology. Are you
Whateley green or rebuilding. Is that something that customers would expect the
MSCP to educate them about.
M19
Yes.
M15
Yeah. Yeah definitely. I haven't seen anybody try to
yet.
M20
I haven't seen any espies you know try to you know try to
pass it off like it was their own product usually they're pushing that name brand out because
customers recognize that SD When name brand and that's kind of the information that they're looking
for.
M11
Great.
M4
And Greg are you seeing a lot of Amnesty's a private label this de-worm
solutions not as of yet know the other
component is of course the circuits. So some MSP
are comfortable providing provisioning circuits which is you know what we do
and others are not. We work hand in hand with Amnesty's.
And it seems largely that we're beginning to educate them about this.
So that's the current state that you see.
Great.
M1
Well let's move on now to the part that most everybody wants most and that's kind
of kind of going to the battle card. There's a whole lot of people out there talking.
M3
SD When you know all you need is me and they may be Googling
the vendor name that they're perhaps about to sign a contract with and they
want to find out are these friends foes. Do I really put all of my eggs in one
basket or do I invariably need to pick a couple because they work together
in complementary fashions in no particular order. We've listed
equipment and technology vendors for us. And what I'd like to do is
come and take them. You know one or two at a time Fred we'll start with you.
Tell us you know what we need to know about mushroom networks. Tuloy
And if you had any business with them and how you think they
compare to any others on the list and we'll kind of go down to these one pair by pair of between the
two of you.
M2
Well the first couple that you mentioned I'm not very familiar with those two
mushroom networks is one I have. I've recently heard a little bit about oh I don't know enough to
speak intelligently about that one or Tellier.
M9
Greg have you worked with any of the first two.
M10
No.
M1
All right well let's move on to Siberia and riverbed already have any
interactions with them.
M20
Now a Subir is another one I haven't run into a riverbed. I definitely can talk about.
So. So riverbed has been you know and I'll go out on a limb and say the
undisputed heavyweight champion of Wayne optimization for quite a while.
M2
Most of my large enterprise accounts have deployed riverbed. I
think that customers out there need to do if they're considering
adding steel connect to their existing deployment. You know I realize that
that you've invested a lot into that deployment already but you really need to do yourself a
favor and take a look around. You know they're doing some interesting things
with past selection and a lot of what they're doing leveraging their
existing optimization technology. There's arguments that can be made about
you know whether bandwidth is so cheap that you know doesn't matter and think you know there's arguments
that can be made back about reduced latency being very important. But some of the
vendors that that would be a good fit for a riverbed customer would
be somebody like Tillery who all the equipment would be on site just like with
riverbed. And a lot of those customers have looked at all three maybe four or five years ago
and don't realize how much the price has dropped and the technology
differences I think it's definitely something that customers it's been some time
reviewing. If they're in those two you know don't just go with your existing
vendor you really need to weigh the pluses and minuses and look again.
M9
And Greg have you had experience in a similar or different to Siberia and riverbed.
M4
We surveyed quite a few. And of course they're changing all the time they are adding
to it but we've looked at many of the carrier solutions which is
an easier way to do it.
M16
You don't get so intricately involved.
M12
But also that way I think you do need to specialize in a couple of
solutions. As far as the boxes are concerned from you know
MSP or selling perspective and I specialize in that
and those so those boxes should be able to provide a wide range of
solutions. Now the carrier component. Yes the carriers
provide circuits and they provide their version of SD
when that among the equipment that they've selected in standardized
form.
M4
So you know the
two sides of the same coin is the circuits that you're going to plug into the SD
box in that box. All the technology and things that the
folks in and they do different they do the same thing for the most part. But
many of them have you know optimized or enhanced
features. For instance there's at least one that tackles
it from the perspective of optimizing choice beyond IP said transmission
because they consider that you know one of the most important types
of transmission that should receive priority particularly when you're connecting a
phone system. Oh more various different locations.
M18
Right right. All right. And then moving on to the area in yellow cloud.
Brad it seems like every carrier out there is bragging about how they've
adopted Bellot clouds. SD When technology was like the broad soft
of SD When have you had a lot of experience with either of these two
Rynders.
M2
Yeah. So Arriaga was one that I described a little bit earlier as kind of a
cloud in Peosta play there. They're fairly unique. You don't even need
to circuits with them. What they're really trying to accomplish is is
for global networks to optimize that middle mile as global
networks. Biggest challenge is having high latency times between sites
that are really far away like you know us and you know
China and Japan you know halfway across the world.
And they focus on the middle mile and let customers buy at lower
prices. Whatever the best internet connection is for the for the first mile
closest to their endpoints. So they're kind of unique. They're not really
competing with these other technologies. In my opinion they're they're really
competing for global networks that that don't feel like they can get away from
the US model they're giving them an option. Bellot cloud is
interesting but the cloud regardless of what anybody thinks about the technology race
there their crush and the marketing race there their name is out there everywhere.
And there's three different kinds of experiences you can have a
public cloud. In my opinion there's two different carrier experiences
and then one is the MSP experience. So what Velho cloud
carriers are all pay are all you know locking in. I'm just seeing them all
the time you're getting aggregators you're getting major carriers. You know AT&T
signed with them Grant signed with some Megami have signed with Sprint signed. I mean just
go on and on and on. But a lot of the carriers are
are trying to offer it as a main service and they don't want the
customer to have full access to the orchestrator which is the the tool where you can
go in and make changes yourself. Two applications there's like a menu of like
2400 applications and counting. You can make selections on
either shut off or go down multiple paths or a single path and that's
a really huge deal.
A lot of the carriers are only offering them web portal visibility and you have to open a ticket
to actually go in and make the change and the reason why is you know the carriers have
not just large customers but they also have a lot of SMB smaller business customers. And
they found that those SMB customers might go in and accidentally shut off the network and then want to
so like it. So what they're doing but they're doing is like
they're off. I'm starting to see more and more of them offer 100 percent uptime SLA which
says hey that's better than five nines right. So the 100
percent SLA if you see that you almost can be certain that you're not going to get to
touch anything and that that's valuable for some customers who don't
really want to end it. But other customers really want to get in and play with it and you don't
want to be disappointed. So but there are there are some carriers and they tend to
be not the major brands that are that are opening that up and maybe
giving access to the most important stuff but hiding the stuff the customer might
break. Some are giving full access to the orchestrators I think that's the biggest thing
to review if you're looking at purchasing this cursing purchasing this
technology from Bellick cloud through somebody or getting circuits from. And then
the third model is the MSP model that Oh and the carriers.
What they're doing is they're they're they're putting instances of the Velho cloud
technology in their data centers. Most of them might have five or eight data
centers that are lit at various points in the country which is
going to cover most people pretty good. The MSP
model Oh wait also a cloud if the carriers are providing it a lot of times the
cloud based you know if you're like you're following Velho while they're
launching things like cloud based security where
you can pick from a menu Well you're buying from a carrier you're going to probably be using
whatever whatever security firewall that they use in the
cloud. So you may not have access to the full menu the
MSP model allows MSP to resell the entire Bhola cloud
portfolio through Velho cloud. As a as a service in Bellot cloud
is over 80 different data centers and they have that. SD When
I'm sorry software defined security model where you can pick from Palo Alto or
Oregon that I think there's a couple other so that's a definite valving situation
one isn't necessarily better than the other. Like anything else is customer specific. You have to
kind of help guide your customer based on how much they want to get in and be able to
control both themselves and whether or not there's any benefit to having access to
80 instead of eight. You know cloud points that
the cloud solution is running for great.
M4
Greg your experience with area are open but the cloud is it similar to Brad's
well and in general you know the reasons doing
that different customers will gravitate towards the ability with the
wind to have a portal to be able to look at Circuit
circuit performance for instance with an MP s network its
carrier based. Well you know you're not going to be able to make changes in
class of service without calling the carrier doing it manually
with SD When you get a single look at all your
circuits. Some customers just want to see
statistics. Maybe you know historical things or
even real time activity on the circuits that helps us
with the ability to diagnose troubles and resolve them quickly. And then a
customer may want to go in and look at you know how much when they have traffic.
Also they can do that themselves with nasty when we're with some of the
old solutions. You would be able to do that.
M9
All right. And then moving on to big time and the cloud Gen-X rather you
seem are you working with them at all or do you know much about him.
M2
Yes so the tele was very very recently in the last couple of weeks acquired by
Cisco which I think kind of supports the
idea that Cisco I win and Rocky's solution now are looking to move
away from past selection and get into more advanced routing through packet
optimization. And I'm interested to see how that plays out. I think some of the
other large name brand hardware vendors are probably going to be making acquisitions so they can catch
up to where are these other providers are right now. So we'll see how
that plays out as they get integrated with Cisco by
cloud Gen-Xers. Interesting. There are a newer player.
M20
They really focus on application defined routing and I
believe that session based
there they're an evolving provider and I think they're they're definitely one that should be on
on customers hitless to review this because their
technology is getting a lot of attention right now.
M14
Greg Greg a similar experiences with Bill Cullin cloud Gen-X
no BRESSANI expert on that.
M4
We approach it two ways. Either we're going to manage it for the customer or
it's something that the customer wants to manage themselves. The larger network they may
tend towards the latter. So in that case we would use one of the carrier
solutions which is our next topic of discussion.
M6
Great. And then finally So repeat Kolaveri or any that we failed to
mention Brad.
M3
What do you want to share with us about some repeat Clery or any others.
M2
Bacha Tillery Taylor is one I have a lot of experience with.
They have a packed up packet optimization product some of the really cool
things about them are they actually optimize every
single packet in a lot of people that say they optimize packets are not optimizing every single
packet that might be groups of packets but every single pack is
optimized for the first mile middle mile and last mile. And they've been
doing this I think longer than any one they've they've got case studies with customers that have had solutions
in place for four or five years and there's probably not a lot of these other players that can
say that they've had a reputation for being overpriced in the
past. But with the Bellot cloud model and some of these other companies pushing that
MRC model they've they've come down a lot and they're still competitive.
I think that maybe their marketing isn't quite up to speed with some of the other
players that have just exploded on the scene but they've definitely got a great technology product.
The other thing that's kind of unique about them just are one to one thing to know about them as they
have a failed wire solution built into their boxes. So if a box
dies on you that's you know Booby's become a single point of failure.
So what what each of these providers is trying to do. Ex-special the MRC model ones will have
a higher visibility model where you have an active active
passive set up so if box 1 goes down box 2 immediately gets run and then they've got
a lower cost cold spare model where you just have literally a cold spare. Somebody has to physically go
plug it in. Well if the top is Felician you know you don't actually may
not. You may not need that because you could have the fillable wire works like a pasture
switch. So at that point maybe it just becomes one Internet connection. It just
becomes one MPO less connection.
M20
So you're not down you're just losing the SD wan portion of the optimization
for 24 hours until you get a replacement shipped out Silver
Peak you know is a is one of the major vendors out there.
I believe they do a round robin routing. I've got to review
that.
M11
All come back to that one great any other vendors that we've left off this first list.
M20
Brad I think first and that works is one that that
should be added first to networks. And with that CenturyLink
and they've just Comcast has just announced SD Lambada
and they're using Bersa versa is a round
robin type of approach where
you know they just kind of like a kind of like a hunt group round
robin round robin through hom. Other than that I
think I think you've covered all the major ones but I can think of.
M21
Great. Greg any experience was a repeat Clarie or Burreson.
M4
No. It's interesting that Comcast selected Bersa though
I was still a kid at NASA and ready. So by the end of the
year.
M9
Now interesting about adverse brand. Me if you have heard this or not when
I was out at the CenturyLink event earlier this year in San Diego and they announced that
they had selected Burress over Venlo cloud a lot of people said well it's
because the verse does really well on kind of the lower end whereas Velho cloud
is more of a higher and more expensive solution is that a decent
generalization or is it much different than that.
M2
You know that's interesting that they would say that I almost think the opposite I think. I think versa
has over Velho cloud is there and points are around. They have
next gen firewall capabilities Belton vs. basic you know cloud in points or
basic Parwan. Just a quick easy way to understand the difference. A basic firewall
is you know what most people would expect to stop stuff from coming in
next and firewall is what you get when you want deep packet inspection and some
of those higher and security functions that you're you know I.T. security
staff member or consultant would want to would want to get into. There's different
ideas on if that matters or not the have Next-Gen firewalls at the end points.
But that's one thing the Versa has over in Centrelink and the big carriers are
really big into into the security piece. So
I don't know why they were selected but that might be one reason because that's an
edge they have over some of the other options.
M11
Great. Well that kind of takes us into the final part of our presentation today.
We've talked about where all of us have talked or you both talked about how the
vendors.
M21
And then there are master agencies are really taking Esti went
out to the marketplace through their channel partners and in no particular
order we've listed both the carriers that maybe do in verse
or Velho cloud or some other combination. And then the master agencies
that are you know champion these different solutions. Greg since you
stated earlier that you really lead with the carrier SD and solutions can you
pick out some of these carriers that you're doing business with first
and let us know what your experiences with their SDN solutions well
from my perspective you can put them all in a box and they each provide their own wind
solution.
M4
They're going to provision it manager. So from a
point of view that's a solution you can provide. Maybe it's pretty much hands off
if if you're dealing with a client providing a more full service personal
solution than we would provision the box that
we support. And of Benish that for
the client while allowing them to have access.
One good point about the when when were converting from them POS to
the Windows solution is that no the larger customers
are not going to jump over to the web. You know all it
wants but the Esti way and provides a solution available for
them to actually connect the POS circuit that they rely want
into a as to when will there be a trial solution or a
solution that is used to add new locations that would
typically you would order an additional one POS. And you
can and you can still put everything on one network using that
solution.
M21
So thats a good migration path for larger clients that are looking to
transition okay and Brad do you have any
Esti whan integration experience with these any other carrier vendors.
M2
Yeah I think you know like you said a lot of them you can put in a box
you know for me you know putting them into boxes you know separating the ones
that that do not allow access be
direct access to the orchestrator tools. A couple a couple that do
would be met tell as a means of service. They give full
co-management access. EarthLink was one that started
off with not allowing access because of the SNB situation
where were customer might accidently shut off their own network. But
they they started to turn back the other direction and allow access to the
tools that the customers really want to get access to.
M20
But you don't see something maybe a little bit more dangerous. You know from a
setting standpoint you know locked down a trouble ticket.
Now Earthlink is you know part of Windstream now I think Windstream is
adopting the Earthlink solution it's a little hard to tell. But
eventually I think that'll be one conversation with the two of them. No Windstream curved
version. They don't allow customers to have access to the orchestrator.
M15
Come on here. You know and granted. So you've got mega paff on
here.
M20
We need to address that hyper core which is an aggregator.
They have Abella cloud solutions as well and I'm pretty sure they're offering co-management
of the tools. He said
Grant uses hyper Corriher records separate from granite supper
so granite is a Pott's consolidator that also gets senda DSL T-1000
cable modem and they've they've added Bell as well
OK well then moving on to granite you shouldn't believe
that you know you could put sprint on you know everybody thinks to spring for saltines but
they still have a robust global network as well in Nevada.
M22
They've got a blood clot as well.
M21
And then finally the mastery agency is we've got to get through every
master agency like the carriers are saying hey you know we do this and we're experts.
Do you have any experience with any of these master agencies that we've listed or other
agencies not listed that you believe are pretty good at the web.
M20
You'll definitely want to add to this list. They have a very
robust dusty wind portfolio and focus more on that type of
solution and cloud solutions than they can while they do other they do a lot
of other stuff too. But you definitely need to have a ban on there. And then I work with
three of the others on there as well for different situations.
M21
OK which three would you say which three.
M20
Yep.
M22
I work with tailoress WTG and TBI care
and BTG
store.
M21
OK. And Greg any agency See experiences you want to share.
M4
Tauruses our primary mastery agency we're also with Intel
and Tulsa's and WTVG. We like to
see the best we always default to them because of the support.
And of course they represent solutions that
are all flavors all of us.
M1
Great. Now in closing I appreciate that. When you're
talking to a client unless they come with you
with this specific thing hey can you answer this question. You generally
start by leading with a brand name of
win when do you start first by you know describing which of
these four SD wins that they most would probably benefit from past
session Packett or cloud where he kind of skipped those definitions
you know hardware or software and do lead with you know these are the
ones that most people are going with you know say you know Velho cloud and and which
carrier does it best.
M10
Will start with you.
M2
I kind of explain the four different models and try to get some
feedback on what the customer prefers and then then I'll go back and talk to him about
where maybe their current hardware vendor fits in. Well a lot of times I'm
finding is that you know they're getting past selection but they really want pack optimization.
So. So that's that's how it opened the conversation then from there.
M20
If they if they do want to move forward with a packet optimization solution
the two different options there that I look at the most would be an
option where there's a cloud component where the provider has
you know part of the solution is in their cloud. And
then the other one would be all hardware based where the entire SD When
solution sets in the customer's offices. So what either
solution they're going to have you know they're going to have a piece of equipment in all their
offices. But the key is where's the controller Where's the orchestrator Where's
the main piece of technology that's driving it whether it's in their own data
center or whether it's in the and providers data centers and
then from there we kind of you can narrow it down to best of breed.
M21
OK great so you really start with their applications so figure out which flavor is best
and then take them into the brand names. Yep. And Greg
your you're. How do you do it slowly or do you lead with the brand name search lead with
the application or the different type of de-worm.
M4
No of course you go through you know listening to
the client inventory what they have.
They will have told you what they want and then you do you know financial
analysis which is always a big driver and then the benefits and
efficiency analysis and make a recommendation and that will dictate the type of
equipment or service that you're going to use. And then
you know you have to look at how involved a customer wants. Some customers are
hands off and they say hey we just want you guys to take care of everything
and we do. Others want to be intricately involved so
you know we'll share with them all the technical information make several
solutions and oftentimes they will you know dictate which way that
they want to go.
M9
Great. Dan Baldwin and today we've been talking to our man subject matter
experts Brad Carroll was strategic telecom partners in Kansas City Missouri and Greg
Auden's Meyer of Tollefson at out of Baltimore Maryland. Jim Moran We really appreciate your
sharing with us. We'd like to finally close with just a lot of
people watch this and say oh I got to do business with Brad or oh I got to do business with Greg and
I appreciate that you've spent 60 Minutes with us here today. I know that you're terribly busy. What are
the sorts of clients and Brad will start with you that actually match
up with you I mean do you do business with high end businesses low end businesses. I
mean how much what kind of deals are the right fit for you.
M2
Well for me definitely definitely when customers have an I.T. department
because what we what we focus on is becoming part of their internal team
and helping them sort through all the all that all the carriers and all the stuff that
they get told and what I find is they find it hugely valuable
to not have to deal with sorting through all that anymore. As long as the
key component is they have to have somebody that they can trust that knows what they're what they're doing.
And you know so for us you know we've we found that you
know I didn't get into it thinking this would be how it works out. But what I found is the larger
the customers the more they value what we do than the smaller customers. Smaller ones
tend to not understand as much to the total
value that we can bring to the table.
M9
And Greg what are the sorts of clients that match up best with your business.
M12
I agree some of the smaller clients don't appreciated us as much perhaps but
hopefully they be they ultimately do me.
You know we deal with larger clients we deal with primarily some
small medium business and we're also making inroads into
government contracts. So it covers the spectrum and that's why we
specialize and sure are tell from a phone perspective for the vendors
we have access to all the major carriers and most of the specialized
carriers with good Esti wins solutions. And
you know we we try to become intricately involved
trusted member of their team and provide the technical
competencies that we provide when they need it and
stay out of the way when they don't.
M9
Great. Stan Baldwin and again we've been speaking with our in situ manner experts
Brad Carroll and Greg. Greg Greg thanks for visiting with us today.
M10
Gentlemen thank you. It's going to pleasure. Thanks for having us. Appreciate it. We'll talk to you again soon.
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