We love Halloween. Not just because the SDWAN SOLUTIONS’ ‘wear your Halloween mask to work competition’ is such a laugh, but because it gives us the perfect platform to show how SD-WAN should form part of your digital transformation strategy for 2020, so that your network doesn’t go CRASH in the night! Our blog explains which Halloween Howlers your business should avoid on pain of a grisly network death with our ‘based-on-fact’ stories… but of course, Shhhh, we mention no names!
No matter what time of the year everyone needs telecommunications and network technologies that will future-proof their business, maximise productivity and save time and money. Here we give insights into what went wrong for some SD-WAN vendors and their unfortunate customers and suggest ways you can get all the benefits of SD-WAN for your business without getting the heebie-jeebies!
1. The Blood-Sucking Network Dracula – get your teeth into real digital transformation
Shock Horror! Companies are still throwing valuable staffing resource and unnecessary costs at daily network management and maintenance. Companies are wasting thousands of man hours every month managing individual VPNs, looking after dozens of telecom circuits from differing providers, managing faults and outages, instigating manual failovers and reviving dead circuits. Servers, VPNs and entire networks go down, multitudes of passwords inevitably get forgotten, continual updates frustrate and multitudes of contract renewals infuriate. Everyone knows your network is slowing your business down and on top of all that the board are demanding digital transformation! Get real digital transformation to your network, not piecemeal add-ons from various suppliers so your daily tasks and every day operations don’t literally suck the lifeblood from you staff and your productivity
if only you could remove half the problems, if only the network was intelligent and didn’t need constant attention, if only resilience and redundancy was built in, if only the network could be designed to do exactly what you need it to, if only it could be installed without disruption, and probably save money too – if only you had the time to talk to SDWAN Solutions where digital transformation is what we get our teeth suck into.
Resign your multiple networks, VPNs and MPLS to the coffin and get an SD-WAN solution that solves all of the above and more.
2. A Ghost of An Idea – dying a death on the phantom SD-WAN bandwagon
Not too long ago, a large and trusted supplier to the masses jumped on the SD-WAN bandwagon a little too early, and proudly launched an “SD-WAN” product that was SD-WAN in name only. Savvy buyers soon identified this manifestation as a thinly disguised load-balancer and knew it to be a mere apparition of what SD-WAN should be. As the spectre of lost credibility and trust loomed ghoulishly, the spooked supplier quietly withdraws their failed product, which is now happily pushing up daisies in the SD-WANNABE graveyard.
We only do true SDWANderful SD-WAN with the best global vendors where no phantom anomalies will appear out of nowhere and scare the life out of your staff – Check out our partner names; they speak for themselves.
3. Frankenstein’s Monster Network – monstrous technology innovation nightmares
Like Mary Shelley’s novel, this tale is born of a dream that soon turned into a nightmare.
Once upon a time, a talented channel salesman had a vision, a big idea; he would create the biggest and best ICT network ever, something truly monster-sized. He spent the next decade feverishly building and delivering his dream, but then the new challenge of SD-WAN arose. The network king knew that to bring his creation to life he must embrace this emerging and game-changing SD-WAN technology. So, he went in search of help.
Luckily, an old fiend (sorry we meant friend) claimed to know the perfect solution to expand our hero’s network. The savvy network man jumped at the chance and set about his expansion with his friend, but alas, there is likely to be no happily ever after for our hero, as his network fairy tale turned into a gothic horror story. The salesman’s trusted friend had exaggerated their SD-WAN capabilities and tried to bury their pending legal battles. Advisers and fellow industry chums warned that virtually no one will settle for less of a network than they were promised.
But, dear reader, all is not lost. The timely moral in our dark and stormy tale is simple – seek true SD-WAN experts who will readily lend a hand to restore credibility and our network hero may find that the only thing he’s lost is time… Either that or the gloves will come off in court!
We work collaboratively with 1900 vendors worldwide and there are no cobbled-together Frankenstein’s monsters in our bespoke SD-WAN solutions.
Like this blog? The read all about what SD-WAN is and how it will help your business
4. The Mummy’s Curse with a Capital C – How even the tech giants can fall from grace
And it seems the curse it real: The mighty Pharaoh Hubris, eternal king of all networks, has been unwrapped and been laid bare before our very eyes. His downfall? He was too slow and proud to adapt to new network innovations and too stubborn to change his ways – he’s now literally unravelling at the seams.
Of course, his loyal subjects who’ve bowed to his demands and certifications for centuries (OK, that’s an exaggeration but c’mon, we’re allowed a little creative license for the telling of horror stories) will continue to worship him no matter how many layers of old bandages and patches he wraps himself in in a vain attempt to recapture former glory. But alas and alak, he has been left behind, unable to compete against the fresh enthusiastic and more disruptive youngsters who are appearing in the night. Hit by a curse with a capital C, this once Consecrated Colossus is no longer at the top of the network pyramid and it could even be said some of his offers should be confined to a museum.
5. Some Suppliers’ Claims of Best SD-WAN is Just Plain Batty
It’s fun to dress up at Halloween and secretly live out a fantasy to be something completely different– But it’s just plain batty to be a pretty good wan optimisation vendor and think you can blind the public by dressing up a claim that you have the best SD-WAN product available and have always been an SD-WAN provider……They should do what a bat would and …..bed down in some distant cave and rethink that claim so it isn’t all just guano.
Like this blog? Read how to vendor loyalty can cost you money – going to the global giants or ‘usual suspects’ doesn’t guarantee digital transformation
6. And Finally, The Devil Is In The Detail – get a tailored SD-WAN solution for your business
The devil certainly is in the detail, but there’s nothing to fear from adopting SD-WAN.
Every customer requirement is different, which is why we spend time with you to determine exactly what you need your network to do – only then will we advise which vendor solution is the best fit for you and will design an SD-WAN solution to your exact requirements. We only work with the world’s top SD-WAN vendors, we understand the technologies, vendor strengths and occasional limitations. Our solutions are designed using modular components ranging from SD-WAN vendors, connectivity providers and technologies, management options, installation options and of course, we are leading the way with universal CPE rollout, capable of running additional network functionality as well as all our SD-WAN vendor software. Our reputation as trusted experts in all things SD-WAN is truly justified and we only never offer tricks, just SD-WAN treats.
We also offer SDWANCLOUD for the growing use of cloud computing and SDWANASSIST – our white label SDWAN in-a-box – witch… oops, we mean ‘which’ enables telecommunications companies and resellers to sell true and tailored SD-WAN to their customers. Try out our demos on our website.
We’re award-winners, have beaten global tech giants to market TWICE with world-first innovations, are the only UK company to work with the MEF on SD-WAN certification qualifications and are seen by industry experts and media as the UK leaders, movers and shakers in all things SD-WAN
Contact us for your free consultation and take a take advantage of our equally free Proof of Concept offer and make sure you get the Dr Jekyll of SD-WAN solutions, not Mr Hyde!
Follow us on Twitter and our #SDWANGlovesAreOff hashtag for further insights into what is SD-WAN and what is just an SD-WANNABE.
Kelly Rogers
CMO, SDWAN Solutions
Kelly, heads up SDWAN Solutions Group Marketing and Social department and is a multi-award winning marketing, communications and innovation expert with over 20 years experience.
She has worked on projects for five global technology giants, four of the big six supermarkets, three of the UK’s leading retailers, the world’s largest licensed brand and one of the big three publishers, as well as many corporations, public sector agencies, government departments, charities and NFPs globally.
To date Kelly has scooped over 19 awards for her work and two of her campaigns have gone through UK Parliament as white papers.