Many organisations that are in the midst of digital transformation (DX) initiatives are seeking to replace their outdated wide-area network (WAN) infrastructures.
As the use of business-critical, cloud-based applications and tools continue to rise, organisations with multiple offices are switching from performance-inhibited wide-area networks (WANs) to software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) architectures. The high cost and complexities of reliable wide-area connectivity over traditional carrier-based networks is driving most decision makers towards some form of software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN).
I’m sure your business, like many, will reach a point in time where your current WAN solution is due for a renewal, at which point you go to market to initially start to compare costs, then explore further benefits of choosing a new partner, or using your market research to ensure your existing partner is being competitive on their offering.
Taking a different approach
What if next time you reach a point of renewal and instead of just getting a few quotes to compare, you engage with an IT expert who can help you to understand how to take a different approach? That’s what HybrIT do. Instead of just sending a quote for a few new lines or a slightly cheaper MPLS, we take a consultative approach to finding out how we could reduce the need for expensive lines bringing benefits such as:
Saving up to 40% on OPEX costs
Improving performance for end users and overall experience
Delivering a business app aware digital transformation (DX)
Simplifying operations and management
As the boundaries of your data grow beyond your traditional data centre in to public cloud services such as Azure and SaaS applications, connectivity becomes even more critical – creating an application centric WAN is key to ensuring performance and security, whilst maintaining simplicity.
HybrIT are extremely experienced at delivering SD-WAN Solutions, when consulting with our customers we can explain how SD-WAN offers business application steering, cost savings, and performance for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, as well as unified communication services. HybrIT Partner with Fortigate to layer SD-WAN on our high performance highly available internet connectivity to create truly flexible solutions.
Offset costs
Typically, you would have an idea of what your connectivity renewal cost is going to be, especially from a budget point of view. But by reviewing things differently and incorporating an SD-WAN design, suddenly you have released a significant amount of OPEX which can be used elsewhere within your infrastructure or simply to improve an existing service.
The upfront cost for implementing and investing in an SD-WAN solution will typically see an ROI after 12 months, meaning that the remaining 2 years of a typical WAN contract cost can be used more effectively elsewhere.
Security
So, you’ve tackled your heritage WAN solution, implemented an SD-WAN solution, improved performance and app experience across the organisation, but what does this mean for security. According to recent Gartner research, 40% of enterprises are expected to adopt SD-WAN by end of 2019. However, technology managers must find SD-WAN solutions that meet the needs of both digital applications and secure cloud connectivity.
SD-WAN technology enables direct internet connectivity from the branch for more efficient access to the cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. Though it helps to move the business to the next level, SD-WAN also expands the network attack surface and exposes enterprise branches to significant risk. This is why every SD-WAN offering must include next-generation firewall (NGFW) protection for successful WAN edge transformation.
In a recent Fortinet Threat Landscape Report, the typical organisation saw 20 cyberattack-related intrusions, with four of those resulting in breaches that caused damage (data loss, downtime, or a compliance issue).The majority of these were advanced threats, designed to bypass conventional security measures. In these instances, a stateful firewall cannot provide sufficient protection.
HybrIT partner with Fortinet to deliver security solutions. Fortinet is the first NGFW vendor to provide native SD-WAN capabilities, which include an application-aware WAN path controller. Over 360,000 customers have already deployed FortiGate NGFWs. With a simple software upgrade, these solutions can leverage best-of-breed SD-WAN capabilities. In the same offering, customers can now enable advanced security features such as intrusion prevention (IPS), web filtering, SSL inspection, anti-malware, and many more features—all of which are organically developed and validated.
Firewall Management & On-going Support
Once you have implemented a new SD-WAN solution with the latest NGFW security, you will need an IT partner to help you keep your security solution up to date, constantly protecting your organisation from an ever-aggressive threat landscape.
HybrIT will help you to review, design, implement and support your solution via our ITIL driven Service Desk team, 24x7x365.