The Best SD-WAN Providers: Installation

Your company is researching SD-WAN, and you’ve been put in charge of the project. The problem you’re having is there are dozens of SD-WAN providers offering their own spin on this new technology.

So, which handful of SD-WAN providers should you be quoting?

One of the aspects where providers differ is on installation (deployment).

In this short video, AeroCom President, Mike Smith, details the different types of installation that SD-WAN providers offer. He gives you a nice summary of each and examples of which type might be the best fit for companies with lots of locations and a thin IT staff.

Want to know which providers Mike recommends for your company’s specific requirements? Click the button below.

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About Mike
Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been helping companies with telecom and cloud services since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards and in 2011, he was honored as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. Follow Mike on LinkedIn, Twitter or SpiceWorks.

Transcript:

So, your company is looking into an SD-WAN solution and you’re wondering, “Hey, which of these 100 or so providers offering SD-WAN should we choose?”

Well, one of the decision factors you should consider is installation of the SD-WAN appliance at every site.

For instance, if your company has a lot of locations and a small IT staff, and your company is always opening up new locations or moving locations, and you don’t have a lot of technical expertise on-site all the time, it really would be nice if you have an SD-WAN service provider who offers a professional installation for you… Where you could pay them to install the SD-WAN appliance at each site.

Or even better, a service provider that offers a “zero touch” installation, where someone completely non-technical can simply plug-n-play the SD-WAN appliance on site, and there’s no technical configuration required.

You really need to think about that as opposed to other SD-WAN solutions where they’re not going to tell you this up front, but when you start digging into the weeds they’re going to say that you will need to have someone technical install this device on site. That can be really problematic, again, if you have a thin IT staff and a lot of locations.

If you don’t have that, say your company has two or three locations and you have technical staff at each site, or they never move, then the only installation you have to worry about is the initial installation. Hey, at that point, do we need a professional installation? Would we prefer that as opposed to jumping on airplanes and installing this at the different sites?

Make sure you ask that question, because not all providers are the same when it comes to that, and the sales people will often not tell you these things until you’re way later in the process, because they don’t want to scare you off if their installation process is not going to fit your needs.

You need to know that up front before you waste time on several appointments and quotes when it’s not a good fit right up front.

I hope that helps. If you have any questions on SD-WAN, please let me know. There’s a lot of other things to consider, too many for this video. Just reach out on email or give me a call at 714-593-0011. I’m happy to give you my recommendations.