We founded the WAN Summit with the intention of creating a space where enterprise network managers and vendors could come together to discuss trends in corporate networking. While our summits cover everything the WAN touches, it’s no secret that one topic has been at the forefront of many attendees’ minds: SD-WAN.
In case you missed my previous post, we here at TeleGeography love busting telecom myths. But we haven’t turned our analytical tools toward common WAN pricing myths—until now!
In this second installment, I’m going to investigate whether MPLS IP VPN and dedicated internet access (DIA) prices have become one and the same.
The world of WAN services can seem like the Wild West to even the savviest of WAN managers. We try to bring some order to this world with our Cloud and WAN Infrastructure research service.
In the age of high-profile corporate data breaches (check out that top 10 list if you don’t want to sleep tonight), many WAN managers have security on their minds. Traditionally, enterprises treated their network security like a fortress, creating strong defenses at the perimeters of the network to defend the data and resources inside.
We have a years-long tradition of Mythbusting here at TeleGeography. But it occurred to me that we’ve never tackled any of the WAN pricing myths floating around out there. That’s why I decided to do a series addressing some of the things I hear from WAN-sourcing and WAN-selling professionals.
Let’s see if these WAN pricing myths stack up against the data.
First up: is it true that, particularly for traditional MPLS networks, local access can account for upwards of 50% of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of WAN components?
Like many of our readers, I’m currently working from home. And it’s likely that I will be for the foreseeable future.
Luckily, TeleGeography just completed its move from a local server that had been living in the IT closet of our DC office to Google’s G Suite solution. We can now access shared files using our at-home broadband connection and G Suite authentication. Despite the uncertainty of the current situation, we’re able to carry on (fairly) business-as-usual.
Predicting the future is hard, especially when it comes to complex markets with disruptive variables that are difficult/impossible to model. In his excellent book Thinking Fast and Slow, Nobel winner Daniel Kahneman provides stark examples of how bad humans can be at doing just that.
In this excerpt, Kahneman details how he tracked the performance records of 25 professional wealth managers across eight years. He found that “[t]he results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.”
Let's talk about telecom expense management, better known as TEM.
TEMs are designed to make untangling telecom investments a little easier. For larger organizations with bigger telecom bills, this can be huge for streamlining costs and saving dollars. (More on that here.)
But why bring up TEMs? Why do we think WAN managers might be interested?
At this point, the spread of COVID-19 seems inevitable in much of the world. Working from home, if possible, is more than just a good idea. It’s a mandate from employers and governments around the globe.
While many folks are considering the social and business implications of a potentially permanent increase in remote workers, at TeleGeography we’re of course thinking about what this means for WAN and IT infrastructure managers worldwide.
After another year of polling and interviewing WAN managers around the world, the results of our annual WAN Manager Survey are in.
Once again, we connected with networking professionals from nearly 100 companies, focusing on those whose day-to-day role covers designing, sourcing, and managing U.S. national, regional, and global corporate wide area computer networks.
What'd we discover? Here are some top-line takeaways.
Copyright © 2024 TeleGeography.
