The need forSD-WAN已成定局。需要对所有用户快速，可靠地访问应用程序和关键资源是在当今的数字化市场的竞争至关重要。其结果是，许多企业现在在他们决定实施SD-WAN一个十字路口。对于大多数人来说，是不是如果，而是如何的问题。如果他们在跳，并建立一个自己的解决方案，或者等待一个托管服务提供商提供的服务？
尝鲜的挑战
Early adopters, while lauding the benefits of an SD-WAN strategy, quickly ran into a number of critical challenges early on. Implementing an SD-WAN solution isn’t always as easy as it looks. SD-WAN solutions designed for one use case, say, connecting branch offices located in a specific metro area, don’t always translate to other use cases, such as then trying to support a global deployment.
但最大的问题是如何确保这些新的，高动态连接。传统的流量通过MPLS路由和WAN路由器的配置接收所有的核心网提供的安全检查和保护。但是，当一个分支机构直接连接到云计算和互联网服务全部消失。一旦组织意识到，与他们的新的SD-WAN设备附带的基本VPN和防火墙将无法充分保护关键数据和应用程序，他们被迫建造 - 和尝试部署 - 覆盖的安全解决方案。选择，集成和部署安全解决方案，不仅提供保护的一个完整的堆栈，但也足够敏捷，与动态变化的连接跟不上，不仅价格昂贵，前期还需要在其整个生命周期中显著的开销。
The need for a managed SD-WAN solution
Those smart enough to see these challenges are increasingly turning to managed services partners to solve the problem for them. This is why SD-WAN has one of the fastest predicted annual growth rates of any solution for managed services providers.根据Gartner称，预计管理的SD-WAN服务，以惊人的76％CAGR通过2023增长。
然而，仍然有厂商的空间很多流失的越来越多的解决方案，争夺市场份额。有些只提供一组有限的功能或仅支持很窄的用例。其他依赖于基于云的连接器的复杂系统，使访问应用程序。大多数人不提供任何形式的集成安全解决方案。而太多的不可能仍然在一年左右左右，无论是由于并购，市场整合，或仅仅是因为他们将不得不关门大吉。
Selecting an SD-WAN vendor
This makes it especially crucial that MSPs have a specific strategy for their managed SD-WAN offering, including any value-add services they would like to provide as a market differentiator. And that they carefully analyze all potential SD-WAN partners they may consider building a new managed service around.
API和标准
一个关键的考虑因素是那些投资于开放的API和遵守的制定和通过的关键标准，在安全性和互操作性认证的供应商的优先次序。MEF（城域以太网论坛），与目前包括全球超过130个服务供应商以及供应商合作伙伴会员，提供了定义互操作性的标准，需要实现产业的指导意见和标准制定机构。
These standards not only ensure reliable connectivity and security functionality within an SD-WAN solution, but also enable service providers to build hooks between SD-WAN solutions and their orchestration and automated workflow services, as well as connections into devices for enhanced management, configuration, and coordination. They also need these solutions to support a wide range of transport options, including broadband, MPLS, and LTE/4G/5G.
性能和云上匝道
另一个重要的考虑因素是性能。SD-广域网解决方案使用各种各样的年代trategies to ensure high-speed access to SaaS applications and multi-cloud resources. The most common is to embed controllers in the cloud that all of their SD-WAN devices connect to. This controller identifies the application being used and then searches for the optimum path to its location in the cloud. Because traditional network management tools, such as BGP, are unable to identify and direct applications around congested traffic, this optimum path almost always involves connecting to a third-party POP. This cloud on-ramp function moves traffic onto a private, fiber optic network backbone directly connected to all major cloud providers.
The problem is that this extra hop between the MSP’s co-location site and the on-ramp POP in the cloud can introduce time delays and latency into a process where application delivery and SLAs are measured in microseconds. MSPs are much better served selecting a solution where the controller is embedded in the SD-WAN device itself rather than out in the cloud.
Security
但是，对于中等规模的最大的问题，以及为他们的客户，是安全的。在最近进行的一项调查MEF, security was the number one value-add service wanted by managed service providers. However, they face the same challenges that enterprises face when trying to implement security as an overlay. The underlying SD-WAN functionality is too dynamic for most security solutions, which means they are often functioning in a perpetual state of trying to catch up. The security implications are obvious.
另一个挑战是，大多数的安全设备作为独立siloes，这使得很难将它们集成到MSP的环境，更不用说到SD-WAN设备的作用。他们是缓慢的。尤其是那些提供丰富的流媒体服务，如电话 - 使用传统的硬件不能与今天的应用程序的需求跟上设计大多数网络安全设备。
As a result, MSPs need to build their service around an SD-WAN device that has already integrated a full stack of enterprise-class security into its core functionality. And the management interface used to control both connectivity and security also needs to scale across multiple devices, as well as be SP-ready by providing tiered support for clients who want a hybrid management solution right out of the box.
最佳的解决方案开始与合适的合作伙伴
As professionals in this space already know, the key to launching a successful managed service is to start with a solution that already contains all of the elements that their customers need. It also needs to be easily integrated into their existing managed services environment to reduce the ratio of engineers to customers. And it needs to provide reliability, functionality, and performance so that SLAs can be guaranteed. And perhaps most importantly, it has been designed by a vendor that already understands how to sustain and support an MSP partner.
以安全为导向的方法，以网络，以提高在广域网边缘与用户体验和简化操作Fortinet的安全SD-WAN解。
Read these customer case studies to see how德的HEU和汉堡王巴西实施Fortinet的安全SD-WAN，以减轻网络的复杂性，增加带宽，并降低安全成本。