Patrick Sweeney joined Talari Networks in late 2017 so I thought it is a great opportunity to get a fresh view on the SD-WAN vendor and market. The fact Patrick came from a cybersecurity company made it even more interesting. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to have a long video chat with him. This interview is the summary of this chat.
Watch Out for SD-WAN Magic When it Comes to VoIP & WebRTC
There is only so much SD-WAN vendors can do when it comes to VoIP and specifically WebRTC optimization. When a vendor claims for specific VoIP optimization that is based on quality of experience or similar considerations, I suggest to check the details of how this optimization is implemented and which applications it covers.
Why SD-WAN is Important for WebRTC
Delivery of WebRTC based communications services to the enterprise can be (and is today) done over best effort open internet but for higher adoption rates among enterprises it is required to enable the delivery of such services over managed networks.
The growing adoption of SD-WAN allows for agile and dynamic delivery of WebRTC services to enterprises
Cisco Adds Another Piece to its Enterprise IT Puzzle
Although Cisco has a very strong position in the UC market, its strengths are mainly in UC of the past (on-premises deployments and telephony focused).
The acquisition of Broadsoft will help Cisco to better compete in the next generation cloud UC and team collaboration.
Overall a strong move of Cisco to help it compete with its rivals such as Microsoft and Slack.
3 Strategies for SD-WAN
MPLS is still pretty commonly used by enterprises, some use it for specific applications while others take it to the extreme and route all traffic of their branches to s central location. Service providers hit a jackpot with MPLS but this is now changing. 2 major forces are making MPLS less lucrative and eventually will kill it: MPLS price is going down; Enterprise requirements have changed
OTTs Combining WebRTC with SD-WAN – a New Headache for Operators
SD-WAN strengthens the position of OTT hosted UC providers vs. the incumbent operators as it makes the operators’ advantage of owning the network less valuable. SD-WAN reduced the operational cost associated with providing hosted UC in high quality as it removes the need for MPLS. Combined with WebRTC, adding real-time communications as a feature to existing SaaS applications has never been easier.