VeloCloud SD-WAN might be under the hood of many ISPs, but it’s not the same

If you’ve researched purchasing an SD-WAN solution from an ISP, there’s a good chance it’s not your ISP who is providing the actual SD-WAN service. [say what?!]

Way back in 2016… the demand for SD-WAN emerged so furiously, ISP’s have had to make a quick decision: 1) roll-out a solution immediately; or 2) get tabbed as an old rickety out-of-date ISP. Consequently, rather than building their own solution (a lengthy process), most ISP’s have decided to take the easy route and white label someone else’s vetted product.

Many of these ISP’s have chosen VeloCloud to be the SD-WAN solution under the hood.

Over 50 service providers, globally, are using VeloCloud-powered SD-WAN solutions, including names like AT&T, Bullseye, CetraCom, IPitimi, MegaPath, MetTel, TPx, Vonage Business, Windstream and Yiptel.

So, this means all these ISP’s using VeloCloud have the same exact SD-WAN solution, right?

Not really. [head scratch]

Without getting too far into the weeds, here is the overview of what’s the same and what might be different, looking at 2 VeloCloud-powered SD-WAN solutions with 2 different ISP’s.

What’s the same?

• VeloCloud Points of Presence (POP’s): Your company’s onsite VeloCloud SD-WAN appliance uses the Internet to connect to the nearest VeloCloud POP, (i.e. the cloud gateway where all the SD-WAN “magic” happens). The closer the POP is to your company’s site, the better performance you’ll receive. Currently, VeloCloud has 17 geographically distributed POP’s, and 7 international POP’s. All VeloCloud-powered solutions will have access to these same POP’s.
• Core Features: Regardless of which ISP is white labeling it, a VeloCloud SD-WAN solution will always have the core features which form the foundation of “how it works,” such as: Dynamic MultiPath Optimization, Link Steering and Remediation, Smart QoS, Application Performance Monitoring, Zero-Touch Deployment, and many more.

What might be different?

• More POP’s: One way a large ISP can differentiate their VeloCloud SD-WAN solution is by taking advantage of their network footprint and deploying additional, geographically dispersed private VeloCloud gateways. Adding more POP’s gives their solution a larger geographic reach than the standard VeloCloud solution.
• Adding an MPLS Backbone Component: Large ISP’s with a large MPLS backbone network can add VeloCloud gateways within their existing MPLS network, allowing their customers’ SD-WAN traffic to travel across a private network rather than the public Internet. This creates a hybrid SD-WAN/MPLS solution, which reduces latency, packet loss and jitter for all applications.
• Optimized Applications: Once your site connects to the VeloCloud cloud gateway, some ISP’s can give you an optimized connection to cloud apps, such as AWS, HP, Rackspace, and more. Each ISP will vary greatly in terms of the apps they can optimize.
• GUI: When you login to the control panel and experience the graphical user interface, many VeloCloud-powered SD-WAN solutions will have a different appearance with variances in API-powered features. So, make sure you have them demo the control panel, no matter how many other VeloCloud demo’s you’ve seen! [ugh]

Are some ISP’s VeloCloud-powered SD-WAN solutions the same? Yes, but you’ll never know until you take a deep dive. Your ISP isn’t going to know (or tell you), how their deployment might be the same… or inferior. You just have to see for yourself.

Questions on SD-WAN, pricing, or the best solutions on the market? Email me! I talk shop all day and am happy to help.