Is your enterprise one that falls in the bracket of small to medium-sized firms? Does your organization face challenges when it comes to deploying network and security services? Are affordability, performance optimization, and ease-of-use key considerations that drive your decision-making? And who can help me with these challenges?

Sound familiar? Chances are great that as a small to mid-size enterprise you’ve asked yourself these questions.

We got answers. And the solutions with our revamped SD-WAN and SASE offerings.

You know us as a leader for Unified SASE Solutions that is trusted by large enterprises and Fortune 500 companies worldwide for over a decade. We now equally focus our energies on small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) like yours to offer you an all-in-one managed service. Our core identity lies in our ability to offer an all-encompassing SD-WAN and SASE network and security service solution, as opposed to the usual multi-vendor stitched together solution which is complex in its execution and just not sustainable in delivering the outcomes you need – and deserve!
Our aim is to make sure your enterprise gets the same end-to-end optimal experience that large companies get. And you won’t have to stretch your budget or compromise on the service you get.

SMEs deserve a First-class Service Delivery Experience

It makes us understand the specific networking and security challenges that enterprises of all sizes face. We take this understanding and actively take steps to deliver products and services that are targeted to address those challenges.

Dennis Monner, Aryaka’s Chief Commercial Officer, when asked about the importance of having a customer-centric focus, puts it like this: “One bad experience is one too many. SMEs deserve a first-class experience equal to large enterprises and multi-national companies while meeting their budgetary needs.”

Research shows that the three main networking and security challenges that small to medium-sized companies face are limited budgets, lack of skilled IT resources, and the need for operational simplicity. These fundamentals need to be taken into consideration before their need for optimized network and security solutions can be acted upon. SMEs search for a vendor that offers a service which encapsulates all their needs, while also fitting their budget framework of what they can afford as an organization, is a difficult one. This is where we step in.

Our revamped offerings bring our highly regarded agile deployment at an affordable price range for SMEs. Our entry price begins at $150 per site/per month. Our integrated approach delivers a more comprehensive set of managed service capabilities with application optimization, network security, multi-cloud connectivity, and cloud-based observability and control, all supported by comprehensive lifecycle services management.

Aryaka’s service is tailored specifically to solve these challenges through our approach of selling network and network security as-a-service. The “as-a-service” is part of our DNA. We have done it since we started 14 years ago. We are unique in combining our technology – and where desired, select 3rd party security technology – a global backbone and integrated lifecycle services management options. Making network and security affordable, easy-to-deploy, and easy-to-consume is what we offer SMEs.

SD-WAN and SASE Solutions for SMEs

Our tailored SME solutions are easy to buy and deploy. They are guided by focusing on cost-effectiveness, resilience, and easy consumption for SMEs. The SD-WAN and SASE service we offer comes with built-in resilience and application acceleration, offering flexible network connectivity through Aryaka’s global backbone. Its cloud-based structure brings in the ease-of-use quality. As enterprises have become work from anywhere and deliver from everywhere since the pandemic, moving networking and security to the cloud while offering the same QoS and performance optimization is the key. And that is what we offer.

More than anything, we make sure that your organization has access to reliable and high-performing network connectivity and security and does not find the need to compromise on the best quality service.

Contact Us to find out more about our SD-WAN and SASE solutions. Use keyword “SME Solutions” in the comment section of the contact form.

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Interest rates are rising.  US Inflation is now 8.5%, its highest point in over 40 years.  The S&P 500 is teetering on the brink of a bear market.  Q122 venture funding has dropped by 19%.

And all in time for budget season and your first request for 2023 IT funding.

So … what’s your plan?

Belts will be tightened

The impact of world events on the economy over the last few years has been unprecedented.  Calls for recession are now a daily occurrence across major news outlets.

“Two shocks in recent months, the war in Ukraine and the buildup of momentum in elevated U.S. and European inflation have caused us to revise down our forecast for global growth significantly,” a Deutsche Bank team led by economist David Folkerts-Landau wrote on Tuesday. “We are now projecting a recession in the U.S.…within the next two years.”¹ 

The phrase,“We need to tighten our belts,” will surely be uttered in more than one board room this summer.  For CIOs charged with finding growth while protecting the enterprise, the question is how?   It’s not like the challenges are getting any easier.

The bad guys aren’t going away

As any CISO will tell you, the threats are not going away.  The bad guys are still out there and unfortunately getting worse.

A penetration test study from Positive Technologies found that cybercriminals can penetrate an alarming number of enterprise networks.  “In 93 percent of cases, an external attacker can breach an organization’s network perimeter and gain access to local network resources.”  Ninety-three percent!²

They’re not (all) coming back to the office

While threats increase, the enterprise continues to become even more distributed.  77% of remote workers say they’re more productive at home.  85% of managers believe that having remote teams will become the new norm.³  It’s almost a given that remote work will persist well into the future.

But not everyone will be remote.  And even those that are remote, will not be remote all the time.  How do you even answer the question of “How many sites do you have?” when every worker is an office of one?  And do your AWS and Azure instances count as sites?  I mean, 60% of your workload is there.

Convergence is the answer

What used to be clean is now amorphous.  Buzz phrases like ‘Digital Transformation’ and ‘Network Modernization’ are just fancy ways of saying that the IT infrastructure and organization need to evolve … and fast.

That evolution is enabled by convergence.  Call it SASE or NESaaS or whatever acronym that analysts come up with, network and security are coming together in the cloud (whether the network and security silos like it or not).

Convergence IS the answer to the question of, ‘What’s your plan?’  Convergence provides the CIO flexibility, both for innovation AND the balance sheet.  It untethers the IT team from the legacy contracts that tie them to capital-intensive expenses.  The world doesn’t work in 3-5 year cycles anymore.  Your network and security infrastructure can’t either.

Big data center costs?  Gone.  Inflexible MPLS contracts?  Bye bye.  Network and security hardware refresh?  Not anymore.

Converging the network and security into the cloud, delivered as-a-service will become the story for CIOs needing to accomplish the impossible:  do more with less.  A smarter, more effective deployment of capital resources that is prepared for whatever craziness the world throws at it next.

Budget season?  We can help

We love talking convergence and helping IT teams rethink their network.  If you are just getting into budget season and trying to figure out how to tell a growth story while reducing the budget, give us a shout.

In the next article, we will discuss four practical recommendations where procurement and IT teams can look to reel-in costs while simultaneously modernizing the network.

1. https://bit.ly/3FJ6cG4
2. https://bit.ly/38pzCwE
3. https://bit.ly/3l94og5

In the next article, we will discuss four practical recommendations where procurement and IT teams can look to reel-in costs while simultaneously modernizing the network. In the meantime, check out Aryaka’s guide for IT manages on how to thrive during an economic downturn.

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We’re excited to announce that Aryaka has signed on to become a strategic partner of CyLab, Carnegie Mellon University’s security and privacy institute, and as a founding sponsor of the Future Enterprise Security Initiative. As part of this, Aryaka will participate in advanced research on threat mitigation and the development of innovative solutions for enterprise networking and security to help enterprises protect against cyberattacks.

Founded in 2003, CyLab is Carnegie Mellon University’s public/private collaborative computer security and privacy research institute. With more than 100 core and affiliated faculty and 100 graduate students, it is one of the largest cyber security research centers in the United States. Aryaka’s partnership with CyLab will consist of providing funding and industry expertise to assist research and innovate sophisticated security techniques to address today’s most pressing threat issues, and will connect the company with students, academics, and other key industry partners to make security more accessible and understandable to end users.

As Renuka Nadkarni, chief product offer at Aryaka describes, “Aryaka shares the future of enterprise security vision of CyLab.  Together we will develop and innovate security techniques to defend against emerging and immediate risks and democratize it via open source to small and large enterprises. With acute skills shortage in cybersecurity, most enterprises are faced with tremendous pressure and risk—when strong tools are available to everyone, we’re all more protected.”

As a founding sponsor of this initiative, Aryaka will provide support at multiple levels in the program. This ranges from guiding the research topics based on the newest challenges and threats our customers are encountering, provide industry expertise, data sets for learning and building AI models, feedback on efficacy of various techniques as well as practical experience to the students via mentorship and internships.

Aryaka was also attracted to a CyLab partnership because of CMU’s leadership in artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as its breadth of disciplines like humanities, psychology, and policy which enables its researchers to look at problems not just from the technology point of view, but holistically as a bigger problem to address attacker motivations and intent.

The company’s belief in rethinking security also aligns with sponsorship of the Future Enterprise Security Initiative (FutureEnterprise@CyLab), which has a mission of rethinking security across enterprise ecosystems through innovations in artificial intelligence, computer science, engineering, and human factors research.   Aryaka shares with CMU a shared vision of democratizing sophisticated security techniques and making security controls easy to configure and manage by integrating them.

Over the coming months, you’ll hear more about our exciting partnership with CMU, so stay tuned!

The post Aryaka Announces Strategic Partnership with Carnegie Mellon’s Security and Privacy Institute, CyLab, As Well As Joining as a Founding Sponsor of the Future Enterprise Security Initiative appeared first on Aryaka.

We’re pleased to announce that SoftBank, one of the largest technology providers and system integrators, has selected Aryaka for its international SD-WAN service.  SoftBank, a technology leader, is embarking on a new stage of the Information Revolution with a “Beyond Carrier” strategy. They aspire to be a company that contributes to society by providing innovative services across a range of industries, going beyond the realms of conventional telecommunications carrier business models.

This is a strategic global partnership that includes joint marketing.  In Japan and APAC the two companies are bringing together the best of both worlds – a global leading SD-WAN solution with localized support.  They have committed to marketing Aryaka’s services to their installed base, which has a heavy emphasis on manufacturing as well as China, two of of Aryaka’s strong suits.  In the near future the companies will be conducting a sales roadshow across SoftBank’s key regional offices throughout APAC and EMEA, and SoftBank will also be bringing the Aryaka solution into their affiliates, such as the Axiata Group in Malaysia and Indonesia.  As a reality check, the two companies are well on their way in developing a strong opportunity funnel.

Service Offerings

SoftBank, as part of their new SD-CORE(aryaka) offer, is tapping into Aryaka’s new FlexCore, a global L3 private core that can be used to supplement its best-in-class global L2 private core, all of which is interconnected to the company’s nearly 40 high-performance points of presence (POPs) that are strategically located around the world. This allows SoftBank to map customer sites to the private core of their choice whether it’s based on performance or cost considerations or based on the criticality of sites and applications. And they will be able to take advantage of Aryaka’s hybrid enterprise and cloud friendly alignment that’s able to map where enterprises are going with their traffic, connectivity, applications, and investment.

In addition to providing customers with a portal site that can centrally manage devices and networks, SoftBank will provide its customers with one-stop support for maintenance and operation after installation. In addition, customers are able to build a more secure network because it can be linked with numerous cloud-based security services, including those provided by other security companies.

Key Features of SD-CORE(aryaka) from SoftBank

• High-speed and stable communication: Aryaka’s SD-WAN technology realizes high-speed and stable communication even in long-distance communication between Japan and Europe and the United States
• Centralized management of equipment and networks: SoftBank and Aryaka make centralized management possible by visualizing the communication status and setting information of routers and core networks installed in the customer’s office from the dedicated portal
• Remote access: By installing dedicated software on a PC or smartphone, customers can access the network from anywhere, such as at home or outdoors
• One-stop service for maintenance and operation support: SoftBank and Aryaka’s post-installation maintenance and operation services and various support windows are provided 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in Japanese and English

Cooperation with cloud-based security services: This makes it is possible to build a secure access service edge (SASE) environment on a global scale by linking with various cloud-type security services.

The post SoftBank Corp. Selects Aryaka for its International SD-WAN Service, SD-CORE(aryaka) appeared first on Aryaka.

Like many of you in the channel, I’ve just spent a week in Vegas at the 25^th anniversary Channel Partners Conference & Expo. Congratulations, Channel Partners, on 25 years. Thanks for bringing the channel community together twice a year and every day online. We agree – the best is yet to come!

Here are a few of the reasons why:

1. The channel is back – bigger and better than ever. More than 7,400 people turned out for CPEXPO – the largest contingent in the event’s history. It’s confirmation of what many of us in the channel community already know – the channel is growing in numbers and importance to businesses in navigating complex tech decisions. The record attendance also included a greater mix of agents, VARs and MSPs. The channel convergence we’ve anticipated for more than a decade may finally be here!
2. Network transformation is an opportunity and a challenge. Telecom agents are looking for providers to help their customers transition from MPLS-centric wide area networks to flexible software-defined WANs. At the same time, provider consolidation is narrowing their options as legacy carriers buy up disruptive competitors. Aryaka remains independent and invites partners to join our continuing campaign for cloud-first networking.
3. Marketplaces are gaining momentum. Online marketplaces are not new; they thrive in the software world as a direct-to-customer channel for buyers that have done their digital homework. What’s happening now is that marketplaces are adding more complex services like SD-WAN (stay tuned for some big news from Aryaka). At the same time, they are embracing rather than disintermediating the traditional IT and telecom channels. Buyers get the best of both worlds – expert advisors and simplified ordering.
4. SASE soars. Secure networking is priority one with partners and their customers, and for a good reason – network security is complex. They’re looking to simplify with integrated and managed SASE and SD-WAN. Aryaka’s 6^th annual State of the WAN report backs up what we heard in conversations at CPEXPO: More than two-thirds (64%) are deploying or planning to deploy SASE over the next year. A similar number will opt for a managed SASE to help address complexity and costs.
5. Diversity moves to center stage … literally. Diversity in gender and race were evident among the speakers and topics at CPEXPO – a welcome change for an industry long criticized for the opposite. While we’ve still a long way to go as a community, the show organizers deserve credit for leading us toward greater inclusion. For those of us at Aryaka, diversity is part of our DNA as an organization. Our global team is diverse from the home office to the corner office; two-thirds of our leadership are diverse in gender and/or race.

Those are my top five takeaways. Agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear from you! Connect with me personally on LinkedIn or email channelpartners@aryaka.com.

The post Top 5 Takeaways from CPEXPO 2022 appeared first on Aryaka.

This year, Aryaka announced the launch of the new Aryaka Accelerate Global Partner Program and our total transition from a channel-first to a channel-led go-to-market strategy.

We built the global program on the foundation the Aryaka Channel Team set in the fall of 2021 with our sales agent program launched at CPEXPO 2021, to include partnerships of all types, including:

• Managed services providers (MSPs)
• Value-added resellers (VARs)
• Cloud service providers (CSPs)
• IT distributors
• Marketplaces
• Technology services brokerages (TSBs)
• Sales Agents
• Technology vendors

Over the past eight months since I joined Aryaka as Channel Chief, Aryaka has demonstrated our commitment to the channel and our partner community through significant investments in people, processes and technology so that our solutions align with our partners’ specific business models and how they choose to go to market.

We’re putting our money where our mouths are to drive real growth for our Aryaka Accelerate partners through our managed SD-WAN, SASE and Last Mile services.

Here’s what Aryaka Accelerate Partners can expect when they partner with us:

• Enhanced Sales and Marketing Alignment – As a channel-led company, Aryaka works in lockstep with partners to align and supercharge sales and marketing activities, such as strategic account mapping, marketing resources, investment in co-marketing and co-selling, and all-new account-based sales and marketing programs to generate leads for qualified partners.
• Lucrative Incentives – Aryaka offers a range of enticing sales incentives tailored to all partner types, such as commission multipliers and increased margin opportunities
• 3-Fold Customer Success – In addition to two levels of expert support, Aryaka provides customer success managers (CSMs) devoted to retaining and growing partners’ accounts.
• Training and Certification – Aryaka has a self-paced, online training program for sales and technical competencies.
• Increased Total Addressable Market (TAM) – Aryaka’s new all-in-one SD-WAN and SASE services are based on the company’s new, industry-leading FlexCore technology that combines Layer 2 and 3 networking, enabling partners to deliver services optimized for performance or cost. This flexibility also expands the total addressable market for Aryaka’s services to include businesses of all sizes – from global enterprises to regional small and medium businesses (SMBs).
• Simplified Packaging and Pricing – Ayaka’s new SmartConnect EZ + SmartConnect Pro and Prime EZ solutions are easy to quote, sell and consume with “T-shirt” sized pricing and standard service tiers, speeding time to revenue for partners.
• New Co-managed Network Option – Aryaka’s new AppAssure application enables VAR, MSP and white-label partners with the network visibility required to co-manage their clients’ networks, increasing their value and wallet share.
• Last-Mile Services Revenue – Uniquely, Aryaka can offer its network-as-a-service solution with the last-mile connections included, offering partners an additional revenue opportunity.

Industry Accolades

These investments in our new Aryaka Accelerate Partner Program have paid off, with recognition as a CRN 5-Star Partner Program. This designation speaks to the innovations and resources the Aryaka Channel Team built into the new program, including real go-to-market strategy, planning and support. Unlike other providers, we aren’t expecting our partners to do all the work to bring in deals. We’re developing true partnerships.

Our team is actively engaging with our partners in a cooperative effort to acquire new business. We generate and share leads, identify target accounts, activate account-based campaigns and work side by side to close deals with our partners.

Aryaka’s channel investments were noted by Channel Futures as well. On behalf of the Aryaka channel team. I’m honored to accept the 2022 Circle of Excellence Award, which is presented to channel leaders who strategically invest in channels and provide enablement resources so that high-performance partners can create business value for their customers.

Race for the Keys to a Corvette!
To kick things into high gear, I’m super excited about our 2022 channel sales incentives, including a grand prize for our highest-performing partner. We’re giving away a 2023 Corvette to the Aryaka Accelerate partner who sells the highest total MRR in 2022.

Who’s in the lead? Check out our leaderboard.

Our Channel Team is Growing

We’ve reinforced our commitment to the channel with industry-leading depth and experience in the Aryaka Channel Team, including:

• Rich Farbman, Vice President of Global Strategic Partnerships
• Sarah Linford Cothran, Director of Channel Programs and Operations
• Nicole Steele, Director of Channel Marketing and Enablement
• Ryan Burke, Channel Sales Director, Great Lakes
• Derek Wood, Channel Sales Director, South Central
• Matt Thompson, Channel Sales Director, Pacific
• Mike Wall, Channel Sales Director, North Central
• Lou LaVigna, Channel Sales Director, Northeast
• Mark McGarvie, Channel Sales Director, Mid Atlantic
• J. Jensen, Channel Sales Director, Rocky Mountain
• Heather Clemen, Channel Sales Director, Midwest
• Ray Marfino, Channel Account Manager, West
• Melissa Anderson, Channel Account Manager, East

I’d like to invite you to meet the team and learn more about the Aryaka Accelerate Partner Program. We’ll be at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, April 11-14, at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas and we’d love to chat with you about what we’ve been up to. Visit us in Meeting Room 27 or Cabanas 119, 120 and 121. Click to set up a meeting.

Got questions? Connect with me personally on LinkedIn or channelpartners@aryaka.com.

The post Aryaka Accelerate: Our Commitment to the Channel appeared first on Aryaka.

Aryaka selected in the 2022 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ for North America, EMEA, and ASIA/Pacific

For the 3rd year in a row, Gartner recognized Aryaka as a ‘Voice of the Customer’ in the latest Peer Insights Review for WAN Edge Infrastructure. The review summarizes and scores vendors based on customer feedback with the intent to provide insights for IT decision makers.

According to Gartner, “This aggregated peer perspective, along with the individual detailed reviews, is complementary to Gartner expert research and can play a key role in your buying process, as it focuses on direct peer experiences of implementing and operating a solution.^”1

Vendors in the Peer Insights Review must meet a minimum set of requirements to even make the final document. Those meeting the threshold are grouped into four quadrants with the top, right quadrant receiving the Gartner designation of Customers’ Choice.

“The acknowledgment from our customers is the greatest compliment that we could receive,” said Matt Carter, CEO. “One of our core principals is to always put the customer first and this Gartner recognition is further evidence that our strategy is working.”

“One stop-shop for bringing all your locations under one SD-WAN umbrella.”

A Changing Landscape

The review hits at a moment of tremendous change for the traditional enterprise WAN. As workloads move to the cloud and employees define a new normal for what the workplace looks like, network and security decision makers are facing unprecedented change.

According to Gartner, “The market for branch office wide-area network functionality is shifting from dedicated routing, security, and WAN optimization appliances to feature-rich software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) and virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE) platforms. WAN edge infrastructure now incorporates a widening set of network functions, including secure routers, firewalls, SD- WAN, WAN path control and WAN optimization, along with traditional routing functionality.”

One and Only One

Aryaka was the only managed services provider receiving the designation of ‘Customer Choice.’ Additionally, it was the only provider that was selected in all three regions of the world, North America, EMEA and APAC.

“Being recognized by both Gartner and our customers is an incredible honor,” said Dennis Monner, Chief Commercial Officer at Aryaka. “What makes it even more special is that we are the only managed services company represented and we were selected in the top-right quadrant for all three regions.”

The review includes both a quantitative scoring of the vendor-based questions like likelihood to recommend and also customer testimonials on the experience. Both the scoring and the testimonials can be found at Gartner here.

Read Gartner’s 2022 roadmap for SASE convergence that dives into our new reality –

“Work from anywhere and the relentless shift to cloud computing services have accelerated SASE offerings to enable anywhere, anytime access from any device. Security and risk management leaders should build a migration plan, from legacy perimeter and hardware-centric offerings to a SASE architecture.”

“The adoption of zero trust security architectures and branch office transformation projects — including software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) offload, internet-only branch — are accelerating the adoption of secure access service edge (SASE).”

Learn how you can adopt a Unified SASE architecture!

For more information on Aryaka’s SD-WAN and SASE services, check out these additional resources:

Additional Resources:

• Aryaka Managed SD-WAN as-a-Service
• Aryaka’s 6th annual State of the WAN
• Aryaka’s Cloud-First WAN for Dummies

The post Gartner Recognizes Aryaka as “Customers’ Choice” for Third Consecutive Year appeared first on Aryaka.

The average tenure of the enterprise CIO was 4.6 years¹ … before the pandemic. Many expect that it will be even shorter as we emerge from the global crisis.

And as the new regime of IT leaders are taking office, one thing is very apparent … they are different.  There are more MBAs.  More profiles with P&L experience.  They are more than just technologists … they are strategic business leaders with a charter to reshape the modern enterprise.

“The CIO role used to be defined as an operational position that would focus on efficiency and keeping the business running faster, cheaper, better, and safer,” says Martha Heller who leads a recruiting firm specializing in CIO leadership.  “Now, technology leadership isn’t about running the business; it’s about changing the business and finding new opportunity.”

Great ideas or great systems?

New opportunities don’t always arise from amazing ideas. Often, they evolve and iterate to become great ideas.   The reason that agile development frameworks took-off was because they were fast.  Not in the literal sense of people working at a quicker pace, but fast because they enabled rapid adaptation.  Flexibility.

This flexibility enables the quick discovery and resolution of problems that ultimately gets good products to market, and then turns good products into great ones.

Similarly, the new face of the CIO is an agile one.  Flexible. Dynamic. Entrepreneurs able to identify issues early and then deploy resources appropriately to resolve them.

How do you scale almost infinitely?  Address zero-day threats that change every day.  Turn-up new applications in minutes. Integrate acquisitions in weeks.

You stay agile.  Flexible.

Agile minds deploy flexible systems

But as we all know too well, it is incredibly difficult to drive the business into tomorrow when dealing with the never-ending, break-fix of yesterday.  This becomes the Achilles heel for the CIO charged with transforming the business.  His or her success is “all predicated on a company having an agile, modern architecture.”²

It is not surprising then that one of the first projects that top performing companies undertake is addressing the backbone of that flexibility:  the network and security architecture.³ It underlays how the company operates.  How it protects data or enables collaboration.  It determines the employee’s on-line experience … which is now his or her only experience.

The CIO who wants to be agile and flexible needs the platform that already is agile and flexible. How long does that take?  It depends. Working with a provider like Aryaka, changes could be in place in a matter of weeks. For those looking to build themselves, it’s likely around 4.6 years.

Check out how Aryaka helped some enterprises:
https://www.aryaka.com/about-us/proven-success/
https://www.aryaka.com/videos/specialty-chemicals-company-albemarle-on-the-benefits-of-aryaka/

The post The CIO’s hidden dependency (3 min read) appeared first on Aryaka.

The test for ‘digital transformation’ used to be measured by how many applications ran in the cloud.  The graph that IT leaders liked to show in the quarterly operations review was the one where the percentage of applications running in AWS continued moving up and to the right.

The challenge that we are seeing today, magnified as half the workforce moved from the office to the house, is when the network that delivers those services competes on the same internet with Disney, streaming the Book of Boba Fett to their 100M subscribers.  It’s not even really a competition, your customers and employees just lose (and let’s be fair, losing to The Mandalorian was palatable … but Boba Fett?!)

Great houses need great foundations

When you build a great house, you don’t start by decorating your favorite room.  Truly progressive CIOs understand that the first step to building is a solid foundation.

While the cloud can deliver all the amazing benefits as advertised in the brochure — flexibility, agility, speed, performance — it is only captured when delivered on a network that supports it.

Moving applications and workloads to cloud environments like Azure and AWS without a cloud-optimized network and security architecture puts stress on the network and security tools protecting it.  The old network was simply not built for the weight now being placed upon it from remote users operating in the cloud.  As a result, it cracks.

Change agents make foundational changes.

CIOs understand that to change is to survive.  But transformative IT leaders know that foundational change starts, unironically, at the foundation.  As such, they are evolving the underpinning for their service — the network and security architecture — to the cloud.  And the numbers here tell a story.

They are closing data centers and ditching old-school MPLS links for SD-WAN and internet. They are pushing security to the edge and becoming more SASE (hoping desperately that Gartner changes the acronym at some point in the future).

They are driving their teams to align with network and security partners that provide cloud-like pricing, not massive capital expenditure that locks the business in for years.  They are opting for self-service delivered as-a-service, not an unanswered ticket from a carrier support team who could not care less.

Go slow to go fast

As the old saying goes, sometimes you need to go slow to go fast.  Transforming years, in some cases decades, of network and security plumbing takes time and the right team behind you.  But make no mistake, while it may not feel like it at the time, these CIOs are at the bleeding edge of change, putting their organizations on a foundation of unlimited potential.

So to get a feel for just how progressive the IT organization is, don’t ask about ‘digital transformation initiatives’ or what innovative R&D projects they have in the works.  Just ask about the current and future state of the network security architecture.

The post Great Houses Need Great Foundations (3 min read) appeared first on Aryaka.

And then the new CIO, hired after months of interviewing candidates with just the right background, just the right energy, and just the right amount of ‘shake-things-upness,’ said on the technology all-hands:

While the procurement team cheered, the remaining tech talent opened LinkedIn and began updating their profiles.

The cloud is the new center of data

It seems laughable to the generation of technology leaders who started their careers and ‘grew-up’ in the cloud to even consider building out in the hub-and-spoke, data center model of yesteryear. As our SVP of Product likes to say, “Data centers are for boomers.”

The new center of data is the cloud.

When a development leader or operations manager can spin-up production-ready AWS or Azure environments in minutes, why the heck would they even think about a data center?

Unfortunately, not every CIO is able to start from scratch and go all-in on the cloud. He or she often inherits a legacy infrastructure that was built for a different decade. Cloud native is simply not yet a luxury afforded the enterprise CIO for a company that’s been around for 20 years. The key word here is ‘yet’.

While the phrase ‘digital transformation’ has become such a buzz-wordy expression, change is absolutely happening. And the CIOs that are changing the fastest and driving a different way for IT to lead the business are the ones that understand that the cloud is absolutely the future … for almost everything. The more parts of the business that run in the cloud and the quicker they can get there, the faster the CIO can become an agent of change for the business, not just an enabler of the technology.

Up next: The leading indicators of CIOs who are truly transforming the business.

The post Are you even built to disrupt? (2 min read) appeared first on Aryaka.

As the landscape around us changes, some portions of the survey also change to reflect the current reality, whereas other trends remain the same. It provides a more relevant output that is readily consumable and actionable.

So, what did I find interesting in this year’s survey?

1. Enterprises are betting on hybrid workplaces – No surprise here!

Although the end of the pandemic is uncertain, nobody is waiting for it to end either. We see enterprises decisively moving forward, whether it be on creating new office space with real estate investments, divestitures, consolidation etc., or even in issuing decrees allowing for some or all of their work force to be entirely remote “permanently”.

Others are making accommodations for employees to come back into the office based on county regulations, vaccination status etc.

No matter where they are in this process, enterprises are placing tremendous emphasis on making employees productive through investments in predictable connectivity and collaboration platforms. This has increased the investments in network (WAN) and in various aspects of the security stack, in addition to other infrastructure elements.

For those investing in infrastructure and real estate, they are making a conscious effort to not create duplicity and cost stacking. Dynamic bandwidth allocation between sites and users, as-a-service consumption models, and cloud-delivered centralization are all becoming the norm as organizations navigate change.

2. Technology investments are on the rise with a focus on digital transformation

Conservatism in investment is giving way to decisiveness in leveraging technology as a key differentiator. We’re seeing this manifest through an acceleration in spending. However, supply chain disruptions, chip shortages, etc. have caused new initiatives to slow down, impacting the pace of digital transformation. Anecdotally, the cost savings resulting from real estate and utility savings, travel reductions, etc., are being repurposed into the technology stack to drive transformative initiatives, while mostly keeping the overall budget net-neutral.

This savings appears to have had a positive impact on network and security budgets, with a quarter of the enterprises expecting them to increase by 25% or more, and with almost everyone projecting at least a 10% hike in investment in these areas. Beyond this we see investment (or consolidation) also happening with collaboration platforms, productivity suites and cross-company planning initiatives. With a hybrid workforce this shift is spot on, and we do see Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Office 365 having gained ground in the last year or so, while SaaS applications in general having been growing like weeds!

I believe this will further accelerate cloud-first technologies with an emphasis on SD-WAN adoption and perhaps set a foundation for adoption of SASE (in a graded manner). But more on that later.

3. Focus on Visibility, Observability and Management

In some ways, this was a bit of a surprise for me, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. The fact of the matter is that the pace of change is unprecedented. As we know this is resulting in tectonic architectural shifts like shifting on-premise deployments to the cloud, applications being modernized and becoming more cloud-native, security posture getting rearchitected, consumption models shifting to an as-a-service delivery mechanism and convergence of hitherto siloed technologies to be more unified.

What stood out is that the IT organizations want to have deep visibility during this period of change. Visibility, monitoring and management – which were all once considered afterthoughts – have really been pulled to the head of the cart. The observability trend is really the umbrella discussion to be had here.

4. The road to SASE is promising but there are genuine concerns

Since this topic is top of mind, it is worth mentioning that at least the promise of the SASE architecture is compelling. A number of enterprises believe the benefits could be tangible, including time and cost savings, increased agility etc. to name a few. However, many enterprises are pragmatic to realize this is not an overnight shift and requires careful planning and de-risking. The complexity of evolving core connectivity and security elements is real, and trusting a single vendor to do it is concerning to a few that have embraced a multi-vendor strategy. An affinity towards getting all this delivered as a managed SASE solution, with SLAs and as-a-service, is therefore not a big surprise. We’re seeing interest in that approach grow considerably.

How to use the State of the WAN report? 

This is a free resource. So, first download it here.

As it is a summation of inputs and insights, you may choose to treat this as yet another resource and incorporate it into your planning cycles. In other words, it will help you “Plan your WAN”! We view the WAN and security to be intertwined and you’ll therefore find a lot of useful information on both.

If you are an Aryaka customer (or Partner), you will see references to some of Aryaka’s offerings. While these do not go into great detail, they provide a simple mapping to areas where you could reach out to Aryaka for help in your own refresh cycles.

The recommendation checklist evolves and you may look at that as a sanity check.

Most Enterprises also have licenses to analyst research reports and access to engagements with them. This SOTW 2022 report can act as a companion to such efforts.

The digital copy is available on January 20^th and the print edition will be available in a few weeks. If you’re interested in a physical copy, please let us know by checking the box when you download the report and we will do our best to get you a copy based on supply and availability.

You may also use it as a coffee table book at your home office or at your “office office” and enjoy the beautiful illustrations

Finally, this blog is incomplete without a big THANK YOU to our stellar marketing team that helps conduct surveys, produce and promote this report. They’re all heroes in my eyes!

The post Announcing the 6th annual edition of the Aryaka Global State of the WAN<br><span>Inputs from 1600 Enterprise decision makers globally</span> appeared first on Aryaka.

How Telcos are poorly placed to provide managed services for next generation Enterprise WAN solutions and how a Cloud-first WAN solution combined with a service-first delivery model is needed to provide much needed co-managed secure WAN services to enterprises.

I recently moved to new place and ordered an Internet connection from AT&T. AT&T shipped me a VDSL modem with WiFi, and even though I had a modem that they supported, they insisted that they must ship their own (and charge me every month for it!). Once service was turned ON, it was clear that I had to turn ON parental control for my young kids (With kids unlimited access to the internet is a bigger nightmare than unlimited access to candies!!). But to my bewilderment, AT&T does not support parental control on the WiFi modem that they sent me. The more frustrating part is that I knew the technology vendor who developed the WiFi modem, and it has supported parental controls on the same platform for few years. But AT&T still has not adopted it!

It is for such reasons the telcos remain the least innovative and most hated by consumers. In a 2018 American Customer Satisfaction Index report, out of 5 most hated industries, three were –  Cable Providers, Internet Service Providers and Wireless Phone Service Providers – all dominated by incumbent telcos!

There has been no dearth of innovation from technology vendors supplying the telcos, but chances are that their innovations have never seen the light of the day because the telco never pushed them to the end customers. As it is, end users are bad consumers of the features when left to individually discover, enable, and use them. And on top of that, if you have gatekeepers like telcos, who decide which features even get enabled, you have innovation coming out at a snail’s space.

Telco’s Inherent Deficiencies

The telco experience is not unique to consumers. It is same for SMBs and enterprises as well. The problem is amplified when offering enterprise WAN solutions. Telcos are besieged with poor customer experiences, inflexible solutions, and remain behind the curve in meeting the pandemic-driven fast paced changes in enterprise WAN requirements. Telcos have structural shortcomings in developing secure WAN solutions or delivering them in the post-pandemic world.

1. Stitched Up WAN solution: Telcos have stitched up solutions with technology and tools from multiple vendors. Customer onboarding and ongoing support workflows are loosely layered upon the solution as an afterthought instead of integrated into the solution. This does not provide a coherent customer experience throughout the services lifecycle from pre-sales to deployment to ongoing support and introduces risks at every stage. Customer touch points largely determine the customer experience, and telcos are poorly equipped due to stitched-up solutions and unprepared staff.
2. Lack of Expertise: WAN technology has progressed from leased lines (DIA), to MPLS, to SD-WAN, and now to SASE. Telcos were best placed to provide DIA and MPLS solutions, in which the critical piece was to provide solid network connectivity. And technology vendors had a limited role in MPLS, in the form of providing the hardware. So, when those solutions were delivered and managed by telcos, it made sense. But for next-gen WAN solutions – SD-WAN and SASE – robust network connectivity is a pre-requisite but not sufficient. As the SD-WAN acronym connotes, it is ‘software defined’ and software is developed by technology vendors, while telcos lack expertise in this area. WAN solutions are becoming more complex and feature-rich and telcos, which are typically volume players selling connectivity, lack the organizational sophistication to absorb this complexity. Many enterprises complain even during sales cycles, that it is difficult to communicate with telco sales teams as they lack the knowledge and understanding of enterprise WAN needs.  In next-gen WAN solutions, differentiation as well as the overall customer experience delivered by solutions is provided by the technology vendor, and telcos don’t have much of a contribution to this.
3. Lack of Flexibility: Telcos lack the agility and flexibility to deploy new features and respond to customer requirements and change requests. This is again due to stitched-up solutions and layered support workflows. Even when technology vendors innovate, telcos are slow to adapt. A part of the problem is, when technology vendors build new features, no doubt, they put the user at the center of the solution, but delivery and post-delivery support are often ignored, which makes it difficult for telcos to roll these out in a customer environment. The small proof is my parental control feature experience with AT&T’s Internet service. The path of innovation to user adoption, when controlled by telco, is fraught with obstacles.
4. Business Model with Perverse Incentive: Telco business models are built on a longer ROI period. Technology vendors have the incentive to innovate to keep themselves relevant, but telcos in fact have the exact opposite incentive – keep the service revenue coming with least new investment for as long as possible. For telcos, the MPLS cycle is still in mid-flight, it is a high revenue service, and they have the core-competency to deliver it. No wonder, a recent TeleGeography report states that, while SD-WAN services are gaining traction, enterprise spend is still dominated by MPLS and local access services. In fact, MPLS spend in 2020 was approximately $32.6 billion, almost 43% of the total WAN market compared to the SD-WAN connectivity spend of $1.6 billion or only 2.15% of the market.

Aryaka ‘Service-First’ Approach

At Aryaka, we are acutely aware of the challenges that enterprises are facing with telcos. With our unique position in the market as both a technology vendor and as well as a managed service provider, we are not only innovating in the technology space but also across the managed services delivery model. We follow a ‘service-first’ approach to solution development and delivery. Every new feature is developed with clear customer adaption target goal. As both a technology developer and managed service provider, our biggest advantage is a service delivery team at the table from Day-0 of feature conception, so feature delivery and post deployment support are not afterthought. Some of the advantages and outcomes of a service-first delivery model are:

1. Deployment and support tools are developed along with the feature. New features are not only designed with the user at the center but also delivery and support in mind. That ensures the feature sees the light of the day and gets widely activated or used in the customer’s network. Many times, new feature development to roll-out across all customers happens in weeks!
2. Aryaka has business model opposite of the telco – deliver more innovation to delight existing customers and attract new customers. The business model enables Aryaka to respond to enterprise customers and their fast-changing requirements in networking and security.
3. A second TeleGeography survey shows that 40% enterprises prefer a co-managed service model, which requires agile delivery and support. Aryaka has natively built co-management capabilities into its solution with appropriate co-management tools for customers and associated support workflows.

As much as Aryaka’s Cloud-First solution architecture is responsible for innovation at breakneck speed, our ‘Service-First’ solution delivery is responsible for bringing it to our customers in the fastest and best possible way. It certainly delights them, and no wonder we are voted as best in all regions in Gartner’s ‘Voice of the Customers’ for two straight years.

Breakthrough template

When you look back, another industry that the telco had tight grip on was mobile services. It is very clear, that Apple’s genius was not only with the revolutionary innovation of the iPhone but also in removing the destiny of phones from the clutches of the wireless service providers and reaching out to consumers directly. Prior to the iPhone, the service providers dictated which phones get certified on their networks and what features get enabled. Apple turned the table and the service providers had to evolve their network to support innovation coming from the iPhone and application ecosystem. If not for the changes happened with Apple’s iPhone, we would be still sending MMS (remember Multimedia Messaging Service!) over 3G networks on a phone with keys! The iPhone revolution has helped even the wireless service providers and according to latest American Customer Satisfaction report wireless phone service industry is no more in the top 5 hated industries.

Action in motion

This movie is paying out in other domains as well – Tesla cutting down the dealer network, or numerous SaaS companies delivering services directly to end users rather than waiting for some middlemen to test, certify and push it into the market. It is time, enterprises will do the same for their WAN service, unshackling themselves from the telcos so that their WAN solution responds well to dynamic networking and security needs in a post-pandemic world and allows them to take on whatever challenges that arise!

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