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1What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
WAN Transformation
What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS Contract
MPLS
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
2What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
As your MPLS contract comes up for renewal, it’s a good time to answer the question facing IT
managers across the globe: Should you continue connecting your sites with MPLS?
Renewing or adding bandwidth to MPLS means accepting the many limitations that have marked
MPLS services:
• The hefty bill that comes with MPLS renewals, particularly as you upgrade bandwidth.
• Poor performance when accessing cloud and Internet resources across the MPLS backbone.
• Weeks and months of waiting for delivery of new MPLS circuits.
• Having to open trouble tickets with the carrier for even the smallest items — and then waiting
endlessly for resolutions.
If avoiding these and other challenges is important to you and your organization, augmenting or
replacing your MPLS-based WAN with Internet connectivity and SD-WAN is an option.
But how do you determine the right architecture for your needs? This eBook should help.
MPLSData Traffic
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
3What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
MPLS
INTERNET/SD-WAN
MPLS
Three Approaches to MPLS Contracts
Renew Continue with MPLS and use Internet-based VPNs to connect locations too
small or remote for this service.
ReplaceEliminate MPLS and connect locations with Internet links and SD-WAN.
AugmentAdd Internet links alongside MPLS, and connect sites to both services using SD-WAN — creating
a hybrid WAN. The SD-WAN will select the right network based on traffic conditions, application
requirements, business priorities, and other factors.
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
4What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
When Choosing Your Strategy, Consider Six Areas
CAPACITY
AGILITY
GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY
AVAILABILITY
SECURITY
CLOUD AND MOBILITY
Key Architectural Considerations
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
5What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
CapacityMPLS capacity costs more than Internet capacity. Capacity costs are of
particular concern now that Internet-bound traffic constitutes most of an
enterprise’s network traffic. Backhauling Internet traffic to reach a central
Internet portal consumes premium MPLS capacity and wastes money.
Instead, consider SD-WAN and local Internet access at branch offices.
By mixing and matching types of Internet access, IT can align transport
costs and predictability with site requirements. Critical sites can be given
more expensive, symmetrical Internet lines with dedicated capacity.
For small offices, broadband and other best-effort services could be
preferable. They offer more capacity at lower cost, but actual capacity
will fluctuate with congestion. With SD-WAN, IT decides how much or
little to spend on capacity — not the carrier.
Key Architectural Considerations
CAPACITY
AGILITY
GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY
AVAILABILITY
SECURITY
CLOUD AND MOBILITY
MB
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
6What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
AvailabilityUptime is, of course, essential for the enterprise WAN and is particularly
challenging in the last mile, where there’s limited redundancy. MPLS addresses
availability with personnel, monitoring equipment, and 24/7 management codified
into end-to-end service-level agreements (SLAs), typically at 99.99% uptime. But
to receive a 99.99% SLA, the MPLS service requires redundancy in the last mile,
an investment that’s often cost prohibitive for many small- and even medium-
sized offices. All this investment in people, process, and hardware becomes a
major factor in the high cost of MPLS services. SD-WAN’s use of inexpensive
Internet access makes widespread last-mile redundancy practical, replacing the
carrier’s over-investment in people and process. With SD-WAN, IT can configure
even small branch offices with redundant appliances in high-availability mode,
redundant, dual-homed connections, and 4G/LTE backup transport, yielding
last-mile uptime that can match and even exceed the availability of a single MPLS
connection. If MPLS is necessary, SD-WAN can augment MPLS with Internet links
and dynamic traffic steering based on application priority and link behavior.
Key Architectural Considerations
www
CAPACITY
AGILITY
GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY
AVAILABILITY
SECURITY
CLOUD AND MOBILITY
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
7What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
AgilityNetwork agility dramatically impacts IT responsiveness to business
needs. The speed of adding new sites, making configuration changes,
and troubleshooting is extremely significant. MPLS circuit delivery
typically takes a few weeks or months, depending on region. Problem
resolution depends on a carrier with its fully managed model. MPLS
services leave enterprises at the mercy of these providers. With a
self-service management model and the ease of choosing last-mile
transports, SD-WAN puts enterprises in control of all their moves, adds,
and changes.
Key Architectural Considerations
CAPACITY
AGILITY
GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY
AVAILABILITY
SECURITY
CLOUD AND MOBILITY
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
8What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
SecurityTo eliminate the backhaul that wastes MPLS capacity and undermines
Internet and cloud performance, branch offices are best equipped with
secure, direct Internet access. MPLS architectures traditionally centralize
security, requiring a major rethinking of the network security architecture
to support distributed Internet access. Locations must be equipped
with Internet access lines, and network security appliances deployed.
With SD-WAN, a full network security stack can be converged into the
network, creating seamless protection of Internet access everywhere.
Key Architectural Considerations
CAPACITY
AGILITY
GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY
AVAILABILITY
SECURITY
CLOUD AND MOBILITY
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
9What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
Global ConnectivityWhen applications operate over distance, latency and packet
loss are the major factors determining throughput. Mitigating
both is critical to global WAN performance. MPLS networks
are engineered for minimal latency and packet loss, but they
come at a very high cost. Also, when accessing cloud and
Internet resources, end-to-end engineering of the route is nearly
impossible, and traffic backhaul over the MPLS network often
adds latency. Furthermore, using the Internet middle mile over
long distances introduces suboptimal routing and dropped
packets at public traffic exchanges, inflating latency and packet
loss. MPLS elimination in the middle mile requires an affordable,
private backbone that can reduce the cost of global MPLS
connectivity and improve on the unpredictable Internet.
Key Architectural Considerations
CAPACITY
AGILITY
GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY
AVAILABILITY
SECURITY
CLOUD AND MOBILITY
Read more on how to deliver reliable, high-performance
WANs into the Asia Pacific and China
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=dochttps://go.catonetworks.com/SD-WANs-China-Asia-Pacifics.html?utm_source=doc
10What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
Cloud and MobilityMigration to the cloud and widespread adoption of mobility are new
considerations for traditional WANs. MPLS services introduce latency
when backhauling cloud traffic to the centralized Internet portal. Once
it leaves the MPLS network, Internet-bound traffic is exposed to the
unpredictability of the public Internet. Mobile users aren’t supported by
MPLS service, requiring additional mobile access solutions. SD-WAN
eliminates the backhaul, sending traffic directly from the branch to the
cloud. Few SD-WAN solutions extend the platform to mobile users,
optimizing security and connectivity to both WAN and cloud destinations
anytime and anywhere.
Key Architectural Considerations
CAPACITY
AGILITY
GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY
AVAILABILITY
SECURITY
CLOUD AND MOBILITY
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
11What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
Answering the questionIs MPLS replacement right for your organization? Should you renew your contract? That depends on your requirements.
ReplaceFor maximum cost savings and flexibility, migrate to SD-
WAN with Internet last-mile connections. For global WAN
support, consider a global private backbone, which is
comparable to MPLS but a fraction of the cost. Security
and mobility can be part of the SD-WAN as well, slashing
operational expenses.
Read more
AugmentIf you can’t eliminate MPLS, use a hybrid configuration of MPLS,
Internet links, and SD-WAN. This way, you get the capacity
and availability of SD-WAN but without maximizing WAN cost
reduction. Consider SD-WAN approaches that can enable MPLS
elimination in the future, especially around global, security, cloud,
and mobility cases. As you grow comfortable with the SD-WAN
architecture, you’ll be able to reduce or even eliminate MPLS,
maximizing your return on investment.
Read more
Renew Continue with MPLS if forced by external factors, such as
regulatory compliance, and if budget, cloud performance, and
mobility aren’t concerns. Nonetheless, SD-WAN is likely to be
your future. That’s why carriers selling MPLS services also offer
SD-WAN. Its agility and cost savings often can’t be ignored, even
if SD-WAN is used only in hybrid deployment.
MPLS
INTERNET/SD-WAN
MPLS
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=dochttps://go.catonetworks.com/MPLS-or-SLA-backed-Affordable-Backbone.html?utm_source=dochttps://go.catonetworks.com/LP_How-to-Migrate-from-MPLS-to-SD-WAN.html?utm_source=doc
12What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
The real question isn’t if you should switch to SD-WAN, but which SD-WAN architecture suits your organization.
The Ultimate Checklist
Questions Approach
CAPACITY Dedicated vs. Best-effort • Do you need to upgrade WAN capacity?
• If so, what type of upgrade — best-effort
(ADSL, cable) or dedicated (fiber)?
Use some or all of the MPLS budget to boost capacity
and redundancy through a combination of multiple high-
capacity Internet links. Make sure you have dedicated
capacity similar to your MPLS capacity.
AVAILABILITY Reliability and uptime • What’s the maximum uptime required by
your most critical applications?
Replace or augment MPLS with multiple, dual-homed
links run in active/active configuration with automatic
failover.
Time-to-repair • How much downtime can the business
withstand at a branch office (minutes/
hours per year -- quantify number of 9s)?
Redundant design (SD-WAN HA, multiple ISP links)
reduces the need for fast (and expensive) time-to-repair
SLA.
AGILITY Time-to-deploy • How critical is the time-to-deploy for new
sites?
The use of Internet capacity and zero-touch provisioning
enables SD-WAN to deploy new locations in hours (with
4G) or days with broadband Internet until an MPLS circuit
can be deployed, if required.
Time to make adds, moves, and changes • How important it is for you to change your
WAN quickly?
A self-service or co-managed service enables fast
changes while the service provider does the heavy lifting
of continuous monitoring of the shared infrastructure.
SECURITY Branch Internet security including next-
generation firewall (NGFW) and IPS
• Do you want to offload Internet traffic at the
branch?
• How will you handle branch office security
(beyond building VPN tunnels over the
Internet to the datacenter)?
• How can you avoid deploying network
security appliances?
An SD-WAN solution with a built-in, full network security
stack everywhere saves having to deploy security
appliances and point solutions, reducing overall cost and
complexity.
GLOBAL
CONNECTIVITY
Global connectivity between locations • Do you need to connect sites in remote,
hard-to-reach locations?
• Do you currently use global MPLS?
• Do you use the public Internet because
MPLS is too expensive?
An affordable private backbone cuts MPLS costs and
improves global latency for Internet-connected sites.
CLOUD AND
MOBILITY
Integrating cloud datacenters and mobile
users with the WAN
• Do you have AWS VPCs or Microsoft Azure
instances you need to connect to your
WAN?
• How do you securely connect mobile users
to the WAN and the Internet?
Consider SD-WAN solutions that seamlessly extend
the WAN to cloud datacenters, cloud applications, and
mobile users.
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=doc
13What to Consider Before Renewing Your MPLS ContractT h e F u t u r e o f S D -WA N . To d a y.
To learn more visit our website at
www.CatoNetworks.com
or contact us for a brief demo
Contact us
About Cato NetworksCato Networks provides organizations with a cloud-based and secure global SD-WAN.
Cato delivers a converged networking and security platform that securely connects
all enterprise locations, people, and data. Cato Cloud cuts MPLS costs, improves
performance between global locations and to cloud applications, eliminates branch
appliances, provides secure Internet access everywhere, and seamlessly integrates mobile
users and cloud datacenters into the WAN.
https://www.catonetworks.com?utm_source=dochttps://go.catonetworks.com/How-to-Migrate-Sits-to-SD-WAN.html?utm_source=dochttps://www.catonetworks.com/contact-us?utm_source=doc