Businesses should change their service provider for managed SD WAN if they are dissatisfied with their previous service. You should take these four tips by Sopto to heart.
Some companies are outsourcing WAN management to an outside service provider, although software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) greatly simplifies the IT department’s work. As the market for managed SD-WAN grows very fast, most carriers, carriers, and even some general managed service providers now offer managed SD WAN.
Since both the technology and the managed services for SD-WAN are still quite new, it is quite possible that the first companies who have used managed SD-WAN early on find that they have chosen the wrong partner.
In this case, they need to find another Managed SD-WAN service provider and smooth the transition to the new provider.
Four tips for changing the provider
Here are four key points companies should consider when switching their Managed SD-WAN service provider:
- Accurate analysis of the problems with the solution of the first provider. Only companies that know exactly where the bugs are can select a new provider to fix the problems. The existing provider’s platform may prove to be poorly suited to the customer’s actual WAN usage. Or, the vendor has not complied with Service Level Agreements ( SLA ), provides too little support staff, or is experiencing staff turnover that affects service. Or maybe the provider is bad at coordinating external partners or service providers like the carrier for the last mile. Whatever the reason for the dissatisfaction: Companies should align the new Managed SD-WAN service provider to resolve these issues.
- Include the existing provider in the planning of the change. Even if the previous provider is unlikely to like it: the company and the new provider need the original provider to ensure a smooth transition. The existing provider must consider the change requests of its customers according to the contract, as a breach of contract increases its costs in the long term. If the vendor complicates the transition, he loses any opportunity to win other parts of the business as a customer, to win back the company in the future or to get a good recommendation.
- Define and enforce policies for the new environment before you transition the connections. The experience gained with the previous solution allows the company to copy existing policies or introduce new policies for the new service to avoid previous problems. The best scenario: The new platform is the same as the old one, provided the technology was not the problem the first time around, and the policies can be recreated easily.
- The transition should be gradual and start with LTE : if the new service allows, companies should first start with LTE (Long Term Evolution) radio links. Using LTE, you can configure, control, and test traffic without laying cables.
In the next step, companies should consider using the legacy LAN side of the network as an input to the new service before gradually moving the connections from the old service to the new one. Alternatively, they can connect the two services in parallel; Both LAN-side connections use the same router or switch. In this way, the links can be successively transferred to the new service; the old solution can then be switched off if all previous connections are disconnected.