The Customer Journey to SD-WAN: Purchasing Considerations for SD-WAN

Functional, Technical, and Economic Considerations

Enterprises can choose to source either a fully managed SD-WAN, in which case a provider will handle the hassle of deployment, provisioning, and ongoing maintenance and changes; or consider or more DIY approach. For a DIY implementation, the business has to be ready to deal with a certain level of involvement and resource allocation, and have a strong internal IT department making sure that the skills exist for managing a new service and emerging technology. DIY SD-WAN is likely to have more hidden costs than sourcing a fully-managed solution. This is because providers of managed services should have the experience in place to propose an accurate project budget and will have foreseen and calculated circuit sizes in advanced networking planning consultations.