The thing about Cloud-First WAN – What you need to know

Today we are announcing a major refresh and expansion of the Aryaka managed SD-WAN portfolio designed to meet the needs of the Cloud-First enterprise. The new offerings cover areas of connectivity, application acceleration, cloud, security and analytics, all brought together seamlessly, and “as-a-service”. We’re calling this the Cloud-First WAN.

The philosophy of the Cloud-First WAN

For us, the notion of cloud-first is not new. Aryaka’s architecture has been purpose built for this from Day-1. It is not also about public clouds only, as one might be tempted to think. Rather, the philosophy is built on a few principles that focus on agility, simplicity, choice and the ability to deliver an amazing user and application experience.

In the case of Aryaka,

• Consumption models with “as-a-service” subscription offerings drive agility and time to market allowing IT and infrastructure teams to rapidly adapt to the needs of the business
• Operational simplicity comes from our best-of-breed managed services that allow our customers to radically simplify complexity and distribute simplicity
• The multi-cloud ready architecture offers choice to bring any application to any cloud connecting public cloud providers, SaaS providers, or partner clouds delivering consistency of experience

In reality, it is the coming together of all these in perfect harmony through an integrated architectural approach that delivers an unparalleled user and application experience.

The new “Smart” Services

The new services and offers we are announcing embody this philosophy. And we’re bringing together at least five of them (for now) all brought together to deliver a seamless experience.

• Aryaka SmartConnect has always been our flagship connectivity-as-a-service offering delivering the BEST application performance in the Industry and simply the BEST global managed SD-WAN. We’ve now expanding this offering to regional deployments with more affordable price points and the ability to choose an ala-carte service. Customers can use this with our HybridWAN functionality with site-to-site internet VPNs. More importantly they can move from Internet to Regional to Global SD-WANs, all fully managed and with the consistency of experience giving each application the merit it is due.
• Aryaka SmartOptimize brings the goodness of network optimization and application acceleration as-a-service. WAN optimization doesn’t require a separate box with Aryaka. It is integrated end-to-end and enabled by default in the global SD-WAN offering. For regional offerings, it can be an optional add-on like a SaaS switch.
• Aryaka SmartCloud is all about choice with mutli-cloud networking as a service. Public clouds, SaaS clouds and partner clouds can all be connected directly from our points-of-presence and be fully managed as extensions to the SmartConnect offering. Each application gets its cloud of choice with consistency
• Aryaka SmartSecure is all about delivering security-as-a-service. From managed firewalls, to micro-segmentation to network security with secure transport, it is about taking security seriously. For instance, we’re now offering the Palo Alto Networks firewall integrated as part of our network function virtualization (NFV) architecture and
• Aryaka SmartInsights is just what it says it is. Delivering actionable insights into the state of the WAN. Powered by the MyAryaka cloud portal and providing rich analytics.

Together these services are the bedrock of Aryaka’s managed SD-WAN and they are growing fast. No wonder that according to the Gartner report In the Gartner report, “Forecast: Enterprise Networking Connectivity Growth Trends, Worldwide, 2018-2023, 2019 Update,” published on October 4, 2019, Gartner analysts say the global SD-WAN Managed Services sector is expected to achieve a 76.1 percent CAGR to over $5.7B by 2023!

All this is coming at the expense of decline in IP/MPLS, the vast majority of which is running on the likes of routers from Cisco and Juniper. With its complexity, rigidity and at times cost, MPLS, the protocol of the 1990s, is really not geared for the cloud-first world.

Neither are the boxes with a CAPEX model and expensive contracts. Today, it is all about subscription. But more importantly the ease of consumption

The Consumption Model

The consumption approach is built on the as-a-service delivery, with subscription that targets opex, and a flexible billing model that adapts to the dynamic needs of the business.

Aryaka’s Cloud-First approach has always been predicated on the consumption approach. All the new services are akin to the easy button. All built on the foundation of SmartConnect, easy to attach and change management is super easy.

It is also all about management. End-to-end.

For Aryaka, management is not bolted on, nor an afterthought. It is at the core of the organizational DNA. Management here goes beyond widgets on a cloud-based GUI. It is about understanding the end-to-end global network, the first mile, the edge/core/cloud and the last-mile and being able to secure, automate, orchestrate, provision, monitor and support 24X7 anywhere in the world.

Consumption is also about flex pricing and billing approaches with bandwidth pooling, bursting and more.

The Quality of Experience comes from a Platform Approach

While traditional SD-WAN vendors in the industry take a box-centric view with little accountability for end-to-end global experience, traditional service providers stitch together technology offerings from multiple vendors and end up compromising on a seamless experience.

It really takes a platform approach to take end-to-end accountability. Aryaka does this with its private global L2 core with over 30+ points-of-presence covering over 95% of the knowledge workers. It takes accountability by procuring, managing and monitoring the last mile.

It offers flexibility with multi-cloud partnerships. Its management and orchestration is highly sophisticated automating workflows across thousands of sites globally with complete oversight and with a highly responsive team. Its secure converged edge – the ANAP – allows for innovations on the edge, while the MyAryaka Cloud portal delivers deep insights into the state of the WAN. When something goes wrong, there is deep visibility – whether it be between the overlay and underlay, or the edge vs, cloud, or some unrelated security policy that is causing havoc.

For customers it is one hand to shake and one throat to choke. This results in consistent SLAs that are often enforceable on day-1.

We believe the combination of these allow Aryaka to be the undisputed global leader in delivering the best SD-WAN services for the cloud-first enterprise. With the new offerings, there is a gauntlet out to the rest of the industry. More importantly, to our customers, the value is now significantly amplified. It is a multiplicative effect.

Don’t believe us?

Hear this from a customer. Join me in a webinar tomorrow on Nov 20^th, for this interesting webinar on “A Cloud-First SDWAN: The Why, What and the How”, featuring Darling Ingredients and Doyle Research.

Register here for a ringside seat.

You can also check out our most recent whitepaper that talks about the ROI on investing in an SD-WAN Solution. Read here.

About the author

Shashi Kiran

Shashi Kiran is the Chief Marketing Officer at Aryaka Networks responsible for Aryaka’s global marketing, product management and technology partnerships. He brings over 20 years of experience in the hi-tech industry across marketing, product management, business development and partnerships.