WHITE PAPER 2020

MPLS Alternatives:�e Definitive Guide

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Executive Summary

Does the enterprise need global SD-WAN? As more businesses migrate applications to the cloud and end users collaborate and share data across as-a-service platforms, it’s paramount for WAN managers and IT leaders to understand how legacy networks fail in a global and cloud-based marketplace. In addition, IT leaders must plan for the limitations of most regional SD-WAN offerings or implement a global alternative, in order for businesses to maintain productivity and efficiency when teams collaborate and data moves across oceans and continents.

�is whitepaper will introduce IT leaders to the current state of the enterprise WAN and offer suggestions for implementation of a globalized network.

MPLS Alternatives:�e Definitive Guide

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�e Wide Area Network (WAN) is the primary way that organizations connect their facilities so that employees in all locations have access to the applications they need to do their jobs. In the past, those applications were all housed in a primary data center, although recent years have seen the emergence of multiple third-party providers whose apps have become central to today’s business world – while being housed in the cloud and delivered “as-a-service”. �e WAN has a wide-ranging impact on the productivity and success of the business. For example:

�e current business environment is characterized by dramatic and constant change, especially around the IT space. �ose changes include:

�is whitepaper will discuss the changes listed above and will identify a set of evaluation criteria that organizations should use to ensure that adopted WAN solutions can respond to the rapidly changing environment.

WAN has a wide-ranging impact on the productivity and success of the business. For example:

�e current business environment is characterized by dramatic and constant change, especially

�e outage of a WAN link can bring business functions to a halt as one or more facilities go offline.

As WAN links are backhauled to reach third-party applications and platforms in the cloud, they can cause degraded application performance, which negatively impacts business processes.

�e WAN can also be a major source of security vulnerabilities.

around the IT space. �ose changes include:

�is whitepaper will discuss the changes listed above and will identify a set of evaluation criteria

�e movement on the part of most businesses to adopt digital business initiatives. Broad adoption of public cloud computing services.

Deployment of WAN solutions based on new architectural approaches.

�e dramatic increase in the number and sophistication of security attacks.

Introduction

Business Enviroment

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IT organizations are continually told they need to align their activities with the company’s key business initiatives. Part of the challenge in creating that alignment is the speed at which both businesses and their technologies evolve.

One fundamental change that is currently having a significant impact on businesses is the movement on the part of organizations of all sizes to transform themselves to keep pace with digital business. An article in Forbes defined digital business as “�e creation of new business designs by blurring the digital and physical worlds. It promises to usher in an unprecedented convergence of people, businesses, and things that disrupt existing business models – even those born of the Internet and e-business eras.”

In an article entitled Strategic principles for competing in the digital age, McKinsey stated that:

Concerns with the Wan Services

“�e digital technologies underlying these competitive thrusts may not be new, but they are being used to new effect. Staggering amounts of information are accessible as never before—from proprietary big data to new public sources of open data. Analytical and processing capabilities have made similar leaps with algorithms scattering intelligence across digital networks, themselves o�en lodged in the cloud. Smart mobile devices make that information and computing power accessible to users around the world.”

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While the McKinsey article addressed some of the ways technology is impacting business, another article,Digital Business Strategy: Toward a Next Generation of Insights, discussed how the digital business movement suggests that IT organizations should no longer seek merely to align their activities with their company’s key business initiatives; instead, they should become the drivers of digital business strategy:

What we can take from these quotes is:

As such, the Information Technology leaders tasked with updating the WAN to support global business activities must be aware of where technology has been and where it’s going, so that they can make the case for getting out in front of digital transformation.

What we can take from these quotes is:

As such, the Information Technology leaders tasked with updating the WAN to support global

�e rise of digital, cloud, and mobile computing and data sharing is on the rise, and will define the future of global business.

�e contributors who prepare their organizations for and help their organizations navigate through this shi� will become more than just administrators; they will become major players in defining and supporting global business strategy.

“Over the last three decades, the prevailing view of information technology strategy has been that it is a functional-level strategy that must be aligned with the firm’s chosen business strategy. Even within this so called alignment view, business strategy directed IT strategy. During the last decade, the business infrastructure has become digital with increased interconnections among products, processes, and services. Across many firms spanning different industries and sectors, digital technologies (viewed as combinations of information, computing, communication, and connectivity technologies) are fundamentally transforming business strategies, business processes, firm capabilities, products and services, and key interfirm relationships in extended business networks. Accordingly, we argue that the time is right to rethink the role of IT strategy, from that of a functional- level strategy — aligned but essentially always subordinate to business strategy — to one that reflects a fusion between IT strategy and business strategy. �is fusion is herein termed digital business strategy.”

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Today’s enterprise WAN technology is at least twenty years old, with the vast majority of enterprise WANs comprising just two WAN services: MPLS and the public Internet, although MPLS is more prevalent given its security and reliability.

�e 2017 Guide to WAN Architecture and Design (�e Guide) identified the concerns that network organizations have with using both MPLS and the public Internet. �ose concerns, listed in descending order of importance, are shown in Table 1.

MPLS is the primary WAN structure used by most large enterprises, so it bears scrutiny in the context of this list.

As shown in Table 1, despite the fact that packet loss and jitter are mostly solved for by MPLS’s stable data transmission, uptime and latency are still top concerns for networking professionals. MPLS’s stable data transmission is susceptible to the laws of physics across large distances, making latency an issue for global organizations.

State Of �e WAN

In order to solve for MPLS’s latency problem, organizations must deploy WAN Optimization to ensure that throughput remains high, and end users experience few negligible lags in performance. �is is especially critical for global organizations looking to create seamless business scenarios.

Cost

Uptime

Latency

Lead time to implement

Security

Lead time to increase

Concerns with MPLS

Concerns with the WAN Services

Packet Loss

Jitter

new circuits

capacity on existing circuits

Security

Uptime

Latency

Lead time to implement

Cost

Lead time to increase

Packet Loss

Jitter

new circuits

capacity on existing circuits

Concerns with the Internet

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Along the same lines, cost and the lead time for implementation of new circuits are major concerns for global organizations when it comes to MPLS. As such, MPLS presents great barriers to deployment and scalability. Currently, even moving to a new office across the street can mean a lead time up to six months for a new link to be deployed. For remote geographies, such as in China or India, new MPLS link deployment could take many more months or even years.

�e cost of deployment is not just for the physical link; it also includes the cost of WAN Optimization Controllers to solve for the potential latency and uptime issues, SD-WAN boxes for Internet connectivity (discussed below), and IT resources to maintain and monitor the network.

In addition, network visibility is clouded under MPLS. Because MPLS is delivered as connectivity without visibility, network managers and IT directors lack the ability to report on details of network performance without support from additional so�ware – which makes optimization and strategic planning difficult.

In line with this concern, the Guide contains the results of a survey question in which the respondents were asked to rate the visibility that their network organization has into their WAN for troubleshooting problems related to network and/or application performance degradation. �eir responses are shown in Figure 1

Figure 1: WAN Troubleshooting Visibility

Other

2%

11%Dont Know

17%We have all the visibilitywe need to effectivelytroubleshoot problems.

19%�e visibility we have is barely adequate

�e Visibility we have is highly effective, butoccasionally

there are gaps.

23%

�e Visibility wehave is effective,but somewhat

frequently thereare gaps

29%

Figure 1 indicates that only a small percentage (17%) of network organizations have all of the visibility they need to effectively troubleshoot WAN performance problems. As companies continually increase their reliance on the WAN in order to support critical business processes and initiatives, such as the movement to transform into a digital business, the inability of the network organization to effectively troubleshoot the WAN will increasingly have a negative impact on those critical processes and initiatives.

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While MPLS may represent the “best” option for creating a secure and reliable network, it no longer wins over the public Internet on direct connection to 98% of business applications living in cloud or SaaS environments.

And as digital transformation drives the future of business, more and more applications and platforms have and will continue to drive toward the cloud.

MPLS has no direct link to cloud-based platforms like the public Internet does; however, the public Internet causes problems that MPLS was meant to solve in the first place.

It is possible to purchase direct connects from MPLS into certain applications and platforms, but costs begin to add up as disparate providers each require a standalone connection – and, even so, only two percent of applications are available for direct connection as yet.

�e Case For So�ware-Defined Networks

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In order to comprehend the value of a So�ware-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) solution, it is important to understand a couple primary characteristics of traditional enterprise networks.

One of those characteristics is that the traditional approach to designing a branch office WAN features T1 access to a service provider’s MPLS network at each branch office and one or more higher speed links at each data center. In this design, which has been in place for roughly fi�een years, it is common to have all or some of a company’s Internet traffic backhauled to a data center before being handed off to the Internet. One of the limitations of backhauling data and application traffic is that since it transits through the MPLS network before being handed off to the Internet, it adds both cost and delay.

�e Guide contained the results of a survey question in which the respondents were asked to indicate how much of their company’s traffic is backhauled. �eir responses are shown in Figure 2.

As we can see from this chart, half of companies backhaul more than 60% of their traffic through MPLS. �is conclusion indicates that network organizations are still relying heavily on the traditional approach to designing a branch office network.

�e other primary characteristic of traditional enterprise networks is that, until recently, all of the key components of the IT infrastructure (i.e., computing, storage, networking) were hard-ware-centric. Network components (i.e. switches, routers, WAN optimization controllers, Appli-cation Delivery Controllers, etc.) have traditionally been based on dedicated appliances, and each device is itself based on dedicated hardware such as Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs).

�e ASICs that provide the network functionality evolve slowly, and the evolution of ASIC func-tionality is under the control of the appliance provider. �ose appliances are proprietary and are each configured individually, so tasks, such as provisioning, change management, and de-provisioning, are very time consuming and error-prone.

�e Pros and Cons of SD-WAN

None

Between 1% & 20%

Between 41% & 60%Between 61% & 80%

More than 80%

Between 21% & 40%5%

11%

26%

8%

40%

10%

Figure 2: Backhauled Traffic

�e broad adoption over the last several years of server and storage virtualization has transi-tioned both the compute and storage components of the IT infrastructure such that they are no longer hardware-centric. �e newer, but rapidly expanding, deployment of So�ware Defined Networking (SDN) in both the data center and the WAN marks the beginning of enterprise networks that are no longer hardware-centric.

Applying SDN concepts to the WAN produces what is referred to as an SD-WAN. SD-WANs, which represent a fundamentally new way of implementing branch office networks, have the following characteristics:

Another key characteristic of an SD-WAN is the ability to dynamically load balance traffic over multiple WAN links and to select the best path based on a combination of policy and network characteristics. �is characteristic potentially enables network organizations to reduce the cost of their WAN by replacing expensive MPLS bandwidth with relatively inexpensive Internet bandwidth.

�ere are, however, some disadvantages associated with SD-WANs. For example, in most cases, SD-WAN solutions only provide a device at the edge that offers best-effort access to cloud-based applications, still includes expensive MPLS bandwidth and does not provide any on-site security functionality.

In addition, in many (if not most) instances, edge-based SD-WAN solutions are implemented on a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) basis, whereby the IT department of any given organization is respon-sible for all of the planning, design, implementation, and ongoing management of their WAN. If the network organization doesn’t have the requisite WAN skills, it is likely to implement these SD-WAN solutions in a sub-optimal way, if at all.

From a regional perspective, this may be fine, but from a global point of view, edge-based SD-WAN solutions cannot solve the latency and throughput issues of the middle mile. In addi-tion, it adds the problem of packet loss and jitter due to congestion on the public Internet. �erefore, while edge-based SD-WAN solves the cloud connectivity issue, it does not provide a true MPLS alternative that creates a viable network option for digital businesses.

following characteristics:

Another key characteristic of an SD-WAN is the ability to dynamically load balance traffic over

�e control of the network is centralized in a device that is referred to as an SDN controller One of the roles of the SDN controller is to implement policy management.

Management tasks, such as configuration and provisioning, are automated.

Multiple WAN links in an active-active configuration are supported

WAN Optimization may or may not be supported

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Global MPLS Alternatives

�e US is home to a large number of global companies. For example, every year Forbes creates an annual ranking, referred to as the Fortune Global 500, of the top 500 corporations world-wide as measured by revenue. At the current time, over a quarter of the companies in the Global 500 are headquartered in the US.

�e Wells Fargo International Business Indicator suggests that interest in doing business glob-ally is unlikely to diminish any time soon. According to that Indicator, 87% of US companies agree that international expansion is needed for long-term growth.

And this does not just apply to large organizations; per US News, half of the nation’s small businesses will be involved in international trade.

A global business performs key business functions in multiple countries. For example, consider a hypothetical company that has its headquarters in the US, does R&D in both the US and Israel, and performs manufacturing in China and the US. �e company has major distribution hubs in Hong Kong, Holland, and the US. �eir data centers are hosted in the UK, the US, and Singa-pore. �e regional sales offices are located in six different countries, including South Africa. All of the company’s key business processes run over the company’s global WAN.

�e outage of a link or poor application performance can create huge problems downstream for a globally distributed organization such as the example above, leading to a slowdown in productivity and a potential loss of earnings as a result.

When choosing a WAN, a global company has all of the concerns that a domestic company would have. For example, similar to a domestic company, a global company would want all of the previously discussed benefits that result from moving away from a traditional, hard-ware-centric approach to networking and adopting a so�ware-centric approach. However, a global company has some unique concerns to include when evaluating WAN solutions.

For example, if a WAN were contained entirely in the US, the round trip delay should be less than 50ms. In contrast, a WAN that connects users in South Africa with applications that are housed in the US would experience a round trip delay of roughly 300 to 350ms. While a delay of 50ms may or may not impact application performance, a delay of 300 ms or more would almost definitely impact application performance and hence have a negative impact on the company’s key business processes.

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Considering what it takes for a WAN to support business requirements in general, combined with the unique characteristics of a global business yields, the following list contains key characteristics that a global business should look for in a global SD-WAN solution:

In evaluating MPLS alternatives and replacements, IT leaders should consider a so�ware-defined global SD-WAN that offers the following:defined global SD-WAN that offers the following:

Secure, high-performance access to cloud applications:Instead of hybridizing your network or paying extra for direct connects into one-off applications, seek a network that contains cloud aEnd-to-end visibility ty as a default.

WAN Optimization:Overcome performance issues like latency without adding costs and complexity by ensuring your network has embedded WAN Optimization.

Holistic control of the entire network:In order to create a WAN under the current conditions, global businesses can end up having to interact with multiple communications service providers. A new solu-tion should eliminate the need to manage multiple contracts and vendors by enabling a single global solution.

WAN Optimization may or may not be supported.

characteristics that a global business should look for in a global SD-WAN solution:

In evaluating MPLS alternatives and replacements, IT leaders should consider a so�ware-

Secure, high performance access to cloud and SaaS applications

WAN Optimization

Short deployment intervals

End-to-end multi-layered security functionality

Multiple active-active links

End-to-end visibility

Reduced complexity

Zero CapEx

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End-to-end multi-layered security functionality:�e old model of providing security just at the perimeter of a company is not satisfactory anymore. Expect your network provider to encrypt data over the middle mile, and not just at the edge.

Multiple active-active links:Data replication increases both throughput and availability. Allow your end users to quickly access data no matter where in the world they are located.

End-to-end visibility:When a problem does occur it is critical to be able to quickly troubleshoot the problem and minimize the impact on the business. A built-in platform for visibility can help your IT team quickly identify and solve problems, as well as create opportunities for strategic planning.

Reduced complexity:One of the primary ways that an organization can minimize the complexity that is associated with their WAN is to move away from a DIY approach and to adopt a fully managed WAN solution.

Zero CapEx and Alternatives to MPLS pricing:While the Internet provides more flexible pricing and no CapEx, a better global alternative should not sacrifice QoS, performance, security, etc. over cost.

Summary and Conclusions

While the current business climate has IT moving from purely administrative function to a more strategic one, it is important to ensure that IT activities align with or prepare the way for their company’s key business initiatives or take more of a leadership role in developing and imple-menting a digital business strategy.

Regardless of whether your organization is at this point or is still moving toward a digital strat-egy, it is important that the enterprise WAN provides the proper connection and performance required by all of the organization’s employees, partners and suppliers around the world. If the enterprise WAN is not performing well, neither are the company’s business processes.

�e current approach to branch office networking has been in place for roughly 15 years. Some of the limitations of the current approach are the cost and inflexibility of MPLS, the perfor-mance issues associated with the public Internet, and the lack of effective troubleshooting capabilities. In addition, there are use cases, such as providing secure, high performing access to public cloud providers, that didn’t exist when this technology entered widespread use 15 years ago. �ese use cases are difficult, if not impossible, to support with the traditional branch office network design.

Until recently, all components of IT were hardware-centric. However, the broad adoption over the last several years of server and storage virtualization has shi�ed both the compute and storage components of the IT infrastructure away from a hardware-centric deployment.�e adoption of SDN concepts in both the data center and the WAN marks the beginning of enterprise networks no longer being hardware-centric. Part of the value of an SD-WAN is that tasks such as configuration and provisioning, which are very labor intensive in a traditional network, are centralized and automated. In addition, organizations can implement effective, end-to-end policy by leveraging the functionality contained in the SDN controller. Yet traditional SD-WAN still falls short of expectations when deployed as a global business solution.

In the current environment, companies of all sizes run global operations, and the ongoing globalization of business is only expected to increase. �erefore, to become a strategic business partner to your organization, it is important to ensure that your WAN can handle the ongoing and increasing demands while ensuring that all end-users are able to remain or become productive, efficient, and connected. Given that the WAN challenges a global business faces are much more demanding than the traditional WAN challenges, it is important to invest in a global SD-WAN solution that provides all of the features outlined above.

To discover how Aryaka is transforming IT leaders into strategic business partners, contact us for a proof of concept of Aryaka’s global SD-WAN today.

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About Aryaka NetworksAryaka, the Cloud-First WAN company, brings agility, simplicity and a great experience to consuming the WAN-as-a-service. An optimized global network and innovative technology stack delivers the industry’s #1 managed SD-WAN service and sets the gold standard for application performance. Aryaka’s SmartServices offer connectivity, application acceleration, security, cloud networking and insights leveraging global orchestration and provisioning. �e company’s customers include hundreds of global enterprises including several in the Fortune 100.

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