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SDN: Delivering Digital Transformation
This document discusses how software-defined networking (SDN) can help enterprises achieve digital transformation by improving their wide-area networks (WANs). It notes that 94% of enterprises have digital transformation initiatives planned or underway, and that infrastructure teams view WAN connectivity as essential to success. However, many enterprises view their current WANs as barriers due to issues like bandwidth constraints, management complexity, and lack of visibility. The document then discusses how SDN solutions like SD-WAN can help by enabling intelligent path selection across hybrid WAN links, flexible application-level policies, and simplifying management. It also presents Comcast's SDN and SD-WAN offerings as ways for enterprises to eliminate bandwidth barriers and radically
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SDN: Delivering Digital Transformation
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- 2. 2 SDN: DELIVERING DIGITALTRANSFORMATION PANELISTS Stefan Schneider Director Product Management SDN/NFV Platform Comcast Business Services Jody Hagemann Director Product Management Comcast Business Services
- 3. WAN CONNECTIVITY DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION 3 DX:THE WHAT AND WHY DX Creates • Value • Growth • Competitive Advantage By Digitizing • Offerings • Business Models • Business Relationships OF ENTERPRISES HAVE A DX INITIATIVE PLANNED, UNDERWAY, OR COMPLETE94% INFRASTRUCTURE TEAMS IDENTIFY WAN CONNECTIVITY AS ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESSFUL DX INITIATIVES. 2. (1.5%) 3. (4.4%) 4. (26.8%) 5. Extremely important (66.4%) 1.Not at all (0.6%) Don’t know (0.3%) 5 - Strongly agree 4 3 2 1 - Strongly disagree 9.8 48.0 39.6 (% of respondents)1.9 0.8 Deploying our digital transformation strategy requires rethinking the architecture of the WAN 83 (% of respondents) 100 CONSIDER WAN HIGHLY OR EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES.93% STRONGLY BELIEVE DX WILL INCREASE BANDWIDTH NEEDS.88% EXPECT DX TO REQUIRE WAN RE-ARCHITECTURE. 83%
- 4. CLOUD APPLICATIONS DEMAND MOREFROM THE WAN 4 CLOUD COMPUTING PROVIDES MANY ADVANTAGES TO DX • Flexibility • Agility • Efficiency • Low up-front costs OF TODAY’S WAN TRAFFIC COMES FROM CLOUD APPLICATIONS20% THESE APPLICATIONS BRING HEIGHTENED REQUIREMENTS FOR • Performance • Security • Reliability • Availability • Traffic Throughput DX INCREASES ADOPTION OF 3RD PLATFORM TECHNOLOGIES INCLUDING: • Big data/analytics • Mobile • Social • Machine Learning/AI • Internet of Things All require cloud as a foundation to succeed
- 5. POLL: BANDWIDTH CONSTRAINTS MANAGEMENT COMPLEXITY LACK OF NETWORK VISIBILITY TIME TO SERVICE WHAT ARE THE PAIN POINTS OF YOUR WAN?
- 6. THE WAN MUST BEAN ASSET TO DX SUCCESS 6 view their WANs as barriers to success today Our WAN is a significant barrier to our business’ success Our WAN is a slight barrier to our business’ success Our WAN has little effect on our business’ success Our WAN is a slight enabler of our business’ success 29.8 27.8 12.2 17.8 12.4 0 10 20 30 40 Our WAN is a significant enabler to our business’ success Not a current area of priority Evaluating the return on investment but currently have no plans Actively planning to make changes 11.2 31.7 37.8 19.3 0 10 20 30 40 Currently working on or have recently completed a WAN transformation initiative 57% have, are planning or evaluating WAN transformation initiatives 89% THE TOP PAIN POINTS FOR TODAY’S WAN ARE: • Service level consistency • Cost of growing the network • Provisioning speed OF EXECUTIVES OF ENTERPRISES
- 7. SD-WAN MANAGEABILITY ANDCONTROL TAKES COMPLEXITY OUT OF HYBRID WAN 7 SD-WAN is an all-network solution, able to control and manage all the different components combining to provide your network capability, including broadband. Broadband has emerged as an important alternative for today’s enterprise, with cost-effective, secure options available at high bandwidth. Cloud Datacenter SD-WAN Router Enterprise Datacenter ... centralized policy-driven WAN Path optimization Branches LTE Broadband Internet MPLS/ PRIVATE LINE SD-WAN Router SD-WAN Controller SD-WAN ENABLES NEW TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES: • Application-defined intelligent path selection across WAN links (MPLS, broadband internet, LTE, etc.) based on policies defined on the SD-WAN controller • Flexible and agile policy definition across all dimensions (security, performance, CoS, reliability, availability) for all apps • Dynamic application policy and traffic management leveraging the central controller
- 8. Comcast Proprietary &Confidential UNIVERSAL CPE: RADICAL SIMPLIFICATION OF THE IT STACK 8 OUR UNIQUE ORCHESTRATION LAYER ENABLES MULTIPLE VIRTUALIZED SERVICES. LESS HARDWARE, LOWER COSTS AND GREATER SCALABILITY — ALL THE WAY TO THE EDGE. VPN uCPE Firewall Router TRADITIONAL NETWORK EQUIPMENT APPROACH Different vendor-specific boxes with dedicated functionality NETWORK FUNCTION VIRTUALIZATION APPROACH Flexible, vendor-neutral device; software-based services can be added over time
- 9. Comcast Proprietary &Confidential AN “ALL-NETWORK” SOLUTION 9 PURE SD-WAN HYBRID WAN HYBRID WAN WITH HIGH AVAILABILITY HYBRID WAN CUSTOMER DRIVEN Update existing networks or cost-effectively create new ones. The Comcast Business software-defined approach makes branch connections faster and more agile with far greater capabilities. INTERNET SD- WAN (IPSec) uCPE Cable Modem LAN LAN INTERNET SD- WAN (IPSec) Cable Modem uCPE MPLS Customer Router WAN Router INTERNET SD- WAN (IPSec) MPLS LAN uCPE Cable Modem VRRP uCPE LAN uCPE WAN Router INTERNET SD- WAN (IPSec) MPLS Cable Modem WAN Router
- 10. Comcast Proprietary &Confidential10 POLL: VISUALIZING THE DIGITAL EXPERIENCE WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU DO IN THE MORNING WHEN YOU WAKE UP? GET A CUP OF COFFEE EAT BREAKFAST LOOK AT MY PHONE
- 11. Comcast Proprietary &Confidential11 DIGITAL EXPERIENCE REPORTING CAPABILITIES
- 12. Comcast Proprietary &Confidential12 GIG + SDN GENERATIONAL MOMENT 12 Comcast Proprietary & Confidential Network of Boxes becomes a Software-Defined Network • MPLS-to-SD-WAN • Universal CPE • Consistent, Simple Orchestration Gigabit Broadband • Widely Available • Affordable • Simple to Acquire & Provision ELIMINATE BANDWIDTH BARRIERS RADICAL PRICE COMPRESSION RADICAL SIMPLIFICATION
- 13. Comcast Proprietary &Confidential13 ACTIVECORESM SDN & SD-WAN 13 ActiveCoreSM SDN Hosted, Carrier- Grade Solution Full VNF Orchestration Gig-Powered Integrated Digital Experience “Unconflicted Scale” Makes Comcast Uniquely Positioned to Execute in SD-WAN
- 14. Comcast Proprietary &Confidential14 Q&A LET’S BRING YOU INTO THE COVERSATION
- 15. Comcast Proprietary &Confidential15 LEARN HOW COMCAST BUSINESS CAN HELP Visit business.comcast.com/sdn Call us: 855-597-7513
Editor's Notes
- #3 Jody Hagemann has more than 20 years of experience in telecommunications, specifically service operations design, new product/feature launch, product to product migration and life cycle management. Jody’s current role is developing the Comcast Business ActiveCore℠ platform, starting with an SD-WAN product offering, which successfully launched on September 13, 2017. She recently accepted a position on the advisory board for the Big Data program at Rutgers University. Stefan Schneider is a Creative and Accomplished IT&T Product Marketing and Technology Strategy Professional with over 18 years experience in Telecoms (Fixed and Mobile), Enterprise IT (SDN/NFV, Virtualization, Data Centers, Enterprise level routing and switching), OSS (Fulfillment, Service Assurance, Fault Management, Performance Management, Inventory and Configuration Management and Analytics) and Digital Media (Content Deliver, Online fulfillment and IPTV).
- #4 Earlier this year (March), we conducted a survey of more than 800 IT professionals, examining: the current state of enterprise WAN usage, key challenges businesses face today with their WAN, the impact of digital transformation initiatives on the WAN, and the impact of digital transformation initiatives on the WAN, and key benefits of using software-defined WAN (SD-WAN). 94% of IT leaders surveyed have digital transformation initiatives planned, underway or complete. 93% consider the WAN to be highly or extremely important to meeting their business objectives and 83% expect DX to require a WAN re-architecture.
- #5 The WAN is critical because that’s what connects you to the cloud. It connects you to IoT. It’s what allows the transfer of huge amounts of data between the data center, the branch. This is now not just available locally within the branch, you have to access it through multiple scenarios. Latency becomes important, security is all important, all of these capabilities and benefits are enabled with a more effective WAN structure. WAN also enables management from the cloud. If you have to manage every single branch individually it’s expensive. The ability to move some of the policy, policy management, control functions, and more to the cloud is critical to that journey. Things have just simply changed in terms of the way applications have been written and the way they perform across any type of WAN interface. There are certain things--actually more than less--that just simply don’t need to run across an MPLS network. The WAN choice itself and the security that you choose will allow you to do things closer to where the people are that need access to that data. So if you need to get out to a public cloud access point, why do you have to route that to a certain point within some innocuous hub and spoke network where you just dump it locally? You need a really good security setup at that location in order to be able to support that. So matching what the application need is, matching what the data and capacity needs, are will drive what the decisions are in terms of where the customer is going, but all of that, all of those decisions in terms of how they want to run their network and what their choice of WANs is will drive what they’re able to do within their business. And at the end of the day, the focus is on deployment applications where the end user is. Another way to put it is, if you think about most businesses, the vast majority of businesses, where do people work? In a lot of different constructs they sort of kind of look like small businesses or medium-sized businesses. They’re distributed. It’s that whole distributed enterprise feel. Those people want to be able to access all of the things that they need to get access to without being encumbered and slowed down by very small pipes that you see in existing MPLS networks.
- #7 From a pain point perspective, existing WANs are prohibitively expensive to grow, otherwise customers would have grown, right? If you still see somebody sitting on a two T1 network, not counting a data center, and they’ve been there for eight years, that tells you there’s something off about the economics of that solution. They don’t have control of those networks. Those networks aren’t necessarily more stable or reliable as they might have been perceived years earlier, right? And then if you give the customer capacity, you give the customer control, and you give the customer the ability to route their traffic as they wish then they start moving around those pain points. And it still takes, for example, 90 to 120 days to upgrade an MPLS network. So there’s not flexibility in case there’s spikes in business. Current WANs can also be barriers to success. They can hold businesses back economically and creatively. They can’t do half the things or three quarters of the things they would really like to do to drive their business to the next level. They’re just handcuffed.
- #8 You have orchestrators--control that is essentially hosted in the cloud. That orchestration is probably the key component of providing more flexibility in terms of deployment of the software function. And keep in mind that SD-WAN is a first journey toward virtualization of all functionality and software. The fact that orchestration is about management of the software functionality--the virtual network function--gives you amazing flexibility versus a purpose-built device that will combine hardware and software together. That remote control management--the fact that you can host the control functions in the cloud--is going to give you a lot more ability to drive and optimize the economics of your WAN function. How to adopt an app-first mentality SD-WAN, what is it good for? Absolutely everything. In talking to customers, we’re hearing a lot of the same questions in the marketplace: Is it good voice? Is it good for video? file shares? Can I put my mission critical apps over it? Yes, here’s why: Today 79% of workloads are in the cloud, according to RightScale. In fact,today’s software-based applications tend to perform better across the Internet – because they are written with HTML in mind. Whereas network managers previously were tasked simply with creating the best environment for voice, video and data, today’s networks need to be reimagined with applications top-of-mind. Plus, you can’t simply plan for your mission critical applications without considering the applications your employees and customers bring to the workplace. Think about employees checking their social networks, YouTube or streaming their own personal music. These “BYO” apps are putting a strain on wide area networks that weren’t built with these apps in mind.
- #9 Jeff Lewis: Universal CPE is where store and compute will occur on the customer’s premise. You need some type of an appliance there in order to interact with an SD-WAN or an SDN (in our case, the ActiveCore infrastructure). It basically allows you to run various VNFs on a common platform, the UCPE, as opposed to what you see on the left hand side which was application specific devices which is the world people live in today. So again, it’s about simplification and streamlining. It’s also why orchestration is such a critical aspect, along with another industry buzzword, service chaining, to make sure that you’re not having one application stomp on the other when you’re running it through a single processing device.
- #10 Jon Feld: Tell us about the journey from hybrid WAN customer drive to pure SD-WAN. Jeff Lewis: Well, this is our entry into the market. We believe we’re going to enter into any customer’s MPLS world by offering a hybrid WAN solution. It just gives you in our view four different mechanisms by which you will “connect” to a customer’s existing network as they go on their journey to either augment their network or to migrate away from their existing network. The two items on the right hand side are where we think everybody will live. We think customers will likely start on the lower right which basically means where you see a customer router they’ll maintain policy control on their router for a little while because they’re nervous to try to figure out how SD-WAN really works, they’re going to want to get used to our digital experience, etcetera, etcetera. When they finally get their arms around it they’re going to go, hang on a minute, I don’t need that customer router, I can terminate those MPLS networks or I can terminate dual broadband or whatever the WAN infrastructure is, directly into the UCPEs on the upper right hand side. Then they can dump that LAN side router. So once again, efficiency, cost savings, etcetera, etcetera.
- #11 For the x percent of you who look at your phone, imagine if you could check the status of your network to understand what’s happening and where – all down to the port level. Let’s show you what that looks like: Insert demo slides to show some of the magic of our mobile and laptop experience.
- #13 Why broadband matters more than ever Insert anecdote about a surgeon streaming Pandora or the YouTube one or the Mufflers and Muffins unnamed one Yesterday’s networks weren’t built for today’s connected economy. The cloud and digital transformation initiatives have changed everything, and getting data and applications to-and-from the cloud – across all business locations – requires a new approach. Software defined networking and modern high-speed options create an all new opportunity to reimagine your WAN with an app-first mentality. Especially now that broadband can cost-effectively handle more than traditional T-1 circuits at speeds up to a Gig. Our SD-WAN plus Docsis 3.1 is a game-changer for branch offices that today don’t have direct connections to the cloud. Here’s why I “hate” MPLS. (Hahahaha) Now, I know some of you are saying, wow, this guy “hates it,” and we’re all using it. I don’t really hate it, but I think the time has come to make your WAN more flexible and useful for your business. MPLS was built for the pre-digital world, today’s businesses need a platform for the digital future. No longer is it feasible to squeeze today’s software-based business processes through the same old network pipes.
- #14 How you can leverage the Comcast Business ActiveCore SDN platform and SD-WAN offering to improve productivity, lower costs, and more. It’s time to reimagine your network as a platform for business innovation – and that means thinking about how to move beyond voice, data and video services to create a network platform that can support applications and emerging business technologies. From the first mile to the last, SD-WAN from Comcast Business can make any network smarter, to unburden distributed enterprise networks from their existing connections and pave a modern path for the future. With SD-WAN plus high-speed broadband and a stateful firewall, companies can more flexibly and cost-effectively build secure, flexible IP VPNs to meet evolving business requirements -- while outmaneuvering the competition How network management can become your competitive advantage Insert anecdote about a customer who’s eyes opened wide when you told him you can actually see what’s happening when on your WAN. With our SD-WAN for example, you can gain unprecedented centralized control and visibility across a distributed enterprise, featuring multiple business locations. Since our offering resides on the ActiveCore SDN platform. The ActiveCore platform is directly integrated with our OSS/BSS, so we’ve developed a true carrier-grade solution – that is repeatable, scalable and smart. What’s more, we’ve developed a digital experience that lets you understand the status of your network -- who’s using what, when, helps you better manage your WAN.