How can MSSP and SPs help

Customers are looking to industry experts to see where and how SD-WAN can simplify operations, improve uptime, and lower costs. For a distributed enterprise, this often starts with the current WAN supplier, the service provider.

As the existing providers of WAN connectivity, MSSPs and service providers are favorably positioned in helping clients understand and leverage SD-WAN technology.

While SD-WAN promises WAN cost-effective advantages over MPLS and private circuits, from our observations and findings, distributed enterprises are unlikely to drop private circuits entirely in favor of cost-effective public WAN. This further supports the notion that WAN suppliers should act quickly in building and offering Secure SD-WAN options to their customers, creating a single umbrella for WAN-related buying decisions.

The ability to bridge security and networking on the same platform is a significant advantage for service providers, enabling a broad, single-provider solution that increases average revenue per user. Choosing the underlying technology for managed SD-WAN and SD-Branch services is crucial. It is a critical factor determining the service’s scope, addressable markets, potential revenue, and size of margins.

Beyond pure managed SD-WAN and SD-Branch services, service providers should consider the solution’s comprehensive and consolidated functionality. The best options will provide the broadest range of extended value-added services (VAS) options for customers—including built-in security.