SD-WAN – Hitting its Stride with Managed Services

June 11-14 2018 saw another hugely successful Cisco Live US event in Orlando FL.  If you missed it, you can access most of the sessions through the on-demand library.

During and around Cisco Live US, there was a lot of activity and several exciting announcements one of which I wrote about then – Finally! An Open Intent-Based Networking Platform Managed Service Providers Can Embrace.   But with so much happening during that time, you might have easily missed another very important announcement made by one of our service provider partners, BT on June 7^th.  I now want to bring your attention to it and discuss a little further.

Read the BT announcement on their site: BT launches new global managed service with Cisco SD-WAN.  BT further describes it as “Comprehensive global managed service improves agility to deploy Cloud and accelerates digital transformation.”   This is more good news for enterprises operating anywhere within BT’s global reach.  To meet their networking requirements, it gives enterprises more choices backed by the strong, trusted brands of BT and Cisco working in partnership.

The BT Connect Cisco SD-WAN is further supported by other Cisco technologies such as:

• Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) software platform for network automation
• Cisco Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS) branch virtualization technology

See a previous BT news release, BT And Cisco Accelerate Partnership for Future Networks.

These put BT in a strong market position to differentiate their services, expand their service offerings to businesses, and add even greater value to enterprises globally.   The latest announcement is also yet another data-point in the relentless march of SD-WAN adoption and the opportunities for managed service providers who choose to participate.

So, you’re a service provider who decides to create and deliver a managed SD-WAN service.  Cisco can certainly help you with that via our Cisco SD-WAN Solution, and help you get to market quickly.  But then you might ask: “Where do I go from there?”  Adding more value to your business customers, further differentiating yourself, adding more services?   Unfortunately, the standard practice to deploy new managed services is typically siloed and very time-consuming and costly.   However, again we have you covered!

When we looked across the plethora of managed services and the increasing possibilities spawned by virtualization and software-defined architectures, it quickly became obvious that we could redesign how services were created and deployed.   The result is the Cisco Managed Services Accelerator, MSX, software platform.

With the Cisco MSX, each service has a much-reduced cost and time to integrate into and operate from your OSS/BSS environment.  The Cisco MSX helps you accelerate your managed services go-to-market and supports the differentiation, branding, and customization that you desire.   We have also taken on the task of developing and offering pre-built service packs. Such includes but not limited to SD-WAN, SD-Branch, Managed Device. We will continue to add to the service pack portfolio to continually push the boundaries of acceleration of your specific services to market.

You can consume the Cisco MSX software suite via the typical on-premises model or to help you get to market even faster, we offer it also in an as-a-service model.

What you can do now:

1. Learn details behind BT’s SD-WAN service and their Cisco partnership to deliver with this 54-minute webinar: How to create an SD-WAN strategy that delivers on its promise.
2. I invite you to check out for yourself the various technologies and solutions via the embedded links above or watch one of our recent webcast recordings to learn more.
3. Keep a look out for another Business Services webcast coming soon.
4. Ask your account team now for a live demonstration of our SD-WAN solution, our MSX platform, and many more managed services offerings we have.

Best wishes for your SD-WAN strategy and managed services success!