The cloud can be contrary.
Scalable simplicity means it can be an affordable, self-service heaven for end user organisations.
And yet, that same cheap convenience can saddle those organisations with a bunch of problems they didn’t see coming.
Mixed news for them…but good news for Managed Service Providers.
Nowhere is that dichotomy more evident than in the world of SD-WAN, the innovation which has transformed the operations of many multi-site organisations by making their network architecture more flexible and more secure.
Easy configuration and policies management; applications running better; reduced costs of hardware management – all delivered over a simple broadband connection.
What’s not to like?
Well, plenty as it happens.
Which is why, for MSPs, opportunity knocks.
Challenges for enterprise, opportunities for MSPs
“There’s no doubt SD-WAN is capable of positively transforming the performance of an organisation, but it often comes with a hidden cost that can cancel out the positives,” says Richard Thomas, founder and CEO of UK Service Assurance experts Highlight, which has a clever (and profitable) solution for MSPs to add to their toolkit.
“SD-WAN is so easy to procure and deploy that vendors are selling direct to end user organisations. There is often no relationship between the provider and the organisation’s MSP, nor any mutual understanding of the solution.
“It’s a competitive market, with rapidly-evolving technologies and products – which means problems can occur. When they do, the end user organisation is often unable to resolve issues in-house and cannot always obtain the right level of support from its either the SD-WAN vendor or the MSP handling the underlying network.
“End users are asking their MSPs to support various SD-WAN technologies. One of our MSP clients now has six or seven different SD-WAN providers that they are being asked to manage. That situation is simply untenable.”
A solution for all to see
It’s easy to see then why MSPs are turning to Highlight. Cloud-based, scalable and affordable, it provides the MSP with ‘single pane of glass’ visibility across an entire network or customer base, even where multiple SD-WAN vendors are involved.
The view shows SD-WAN component health alongside the vital networks on which the SD-WAN relies – making it easy to see performance, flag issues, and deploy a proactive fix before they escalate.
Not least, the MSP can now construct a compelling case for customers – established and new – to deploy Highlight’s clever (and margin rich) service assurance tool.
And, once it has harvested and interpreted the data, Highlight is able to configure and display the results in organised and accessible dashboard views aligned to the varied requirements of different areas of both the MSP and the end user organisation.
Embrace SD-WAN by enhancing its value
“For MSPs, it’s a great customer conversation starter,” says Thomas.
“The salient issues will be very present in any organisation that relies on SD-WAN, so once that conversation starts, the considerations are relatively easy to understand.
“It’s likely that most questions will be around the impact that untamed SD-WAN can have on reliability, productivity and cost, which are all areas in which Highlight can have the most positive impact.
“All organisations are under pressure to monitor, interpret and manage performance. The Highlight tool’s single user interface produces readily understandable data, delivered to the right people at the right time”
“That provides an organisation with the ability to focus fully on its core business AND to work on areas where opportunities to increase productivity and efficiency exist.”
New technologies always present teething troubles and those teething troubles force a certain amount of reorganisation whilst they find their place in existing industry structures.
It just so happens that the solution to the troubles presented by SD-WAN’s innovative cloud-based infrastructure also lies in another innovative, cloud-based solution, namely the Highlight Service Assurance Platform.
The gift that keeps giving?
You betchya..!
To learn more about how Highlight can help your customers turn their SD-WAN woes into increased productivity, visit www.highlight.net
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