Emily Pechal Paul Detiveaux

Sr. Global Account Executive Sr. Network Solutions Engineer

512.743.7269 | Emily.Pechal@CenturyLink.com Paul.Detiveaux@Centurylink.com

SD-WAN

Executive Brief

The Case for SD-WAN: Insights from Industry Experts

“The drivers for enterprises to deploy SD-WAN are clear: agility with reduced costs. Automating WAN

operations (69% of SD-WAN evaluating or implementing respondents), improving application performance, and

branch office security (67%) are all necessary for agility.” HIS

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“SD-WAN revenues will exceed $6 billion in 2020 with a

compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 90% over the

2015-2020 forecast period.” IDC

“By the end of 2019, 30% of Enterprises will use SD-WAN

products in all their branches, up from less than 1% today”

Gartner

“Enterprises adopting hybrid cloud must give careful and

thorough consideration to a WAN strategy that offers the’ same

sort of operational efficiencies and business agility that they seek

to derive from SDN in the enterprise datacenter and the campus.

An SD-WAN provides the complementary missing piece or

capstone for hybrid cloud application delivery.” IDC

Emerging SD-WAN Market Landscape

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Source: IDC, 2016

SD-WAN Architecture

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SD-WAN CPE

(Physical or Virtual) MPLS

Internet

Wireless

SD-WAN CPE

(Physical or Virtual)

SD-WAN CPE

(Physical or Virtual)

SD-WAN CPE

(Physical or Virtual)

SD-WAN CPE

(Physical or Virtual) SD-WAN

Controller

Small

Branch

Medium

Branch

Large

Branch

Headquarters Data Center

Source: Frost & Sullivan, 2016

GUI-Based

Management

Supporting All Enterprise Applications

Gartner Key Findings & Recommendations

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Per Gartner “Market Guide for Software-Defined WAN “ December, 2015

Key Findings

•Enterprises are seeking branch office WAN solutions that can lower capital investments as well

as simplify operations.

•The software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) market is evolving quickly with multiple vendors entering

the market, including large networking vendors, focused WAN specialists and venture-funded

startups.

•SD-WAN solutions from the vendors in this research can simplify the operation of WANs, but all

lack various feature, such as a broad range of hardware platforms.

Recommendations

• Enterprises should take advantage of increased vendor and price competition over the next 12

to 24 months to negotiate pricing.

• Enterprises should look beyond their traditionally preferred vendors and evaluate solutions

from emerging vendors to fully take advantage of innovations.

•SD-WAN should be implemented as part of a comprehensive WAN architecture, which should

include network service chaining both on-site and in the cloud.

IDC Guidance for Enterprise Buyers

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Per IDC “Cloud and Drive for WAN Efficiencies Power Move to SD-WAN” , 2016

Guidance for Enterprise Buyers

Although SD-WAN borrows the core principles of SDN, its value proposition for enterprises stands on its own. In

fact, IDC expects that many enterprises that adopt SD-WAN may not yet have made meaningful strides toward SDN

in their datacenters. SD-WAN offers compelling value for its ability to defray MPLS costs, simplify and automate

WAN operations, improve application traffic management, and dynamically deliver on the cost and efficiency

benefits associated with intelligent path selection.

SD-WAN will be particularly relevant for enterprises that have adopted or are adopting hybrid cloud and especially

those that are availing themselves of SaaS application services. In these cases, there is a strong motivation to

reassess WAN architectures used for application delivery. What made eminent sense on the WAN when

client/server applications were housed exclusively in an enterprise datacenter does not make sense when

applications reside in the public cloud as well as in the enterprise datacenter or a private cloud. Hybrid cloud

demands a policy-based approach to application delivery at branch offices and remote sites, one that potentially

leverages broadband Internet and 4G (LTE) technologies as well as traditional VPNs and MPLS.

In this context, enterprises also can use SD-WAN to balance loads across the WAN or to monitor application

performance and send traffic over cost-optimal or the most reliable WAN links, depending on application

requirements. Similarly, enterprises using cloud-based applications can benefit from SD-WAN's ability to route traffic

to and from cloud services and branch locations.

Enterprises facing skills gaps or resource constraints will want to consider CSP SD-WAN managed services, which

reduce management overhead and related costs by providing comprehensive deployment and management of SD-

WAN solutions, typically based on product offerings from market- leading SD-WAN vendors.

PREMIUM includes all private features, plus:

• Secure Internet access at each site

• Groups and zones

• Ability to chain service requests

• Detailed analytics

• Performance tuning

PRIVATE includes all components for

building a private network between locations:

• Site equipment

• Software licenses

• Management portal

• Use of infrastructure controllers

• Zero-touch installation

• Ongoing configuration assistance

• Standard reporting package

CenturyLink SD-WAN Packages

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Supported Use Case

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C O M P L E T E M I G R AT I O N S

A F T E R : A L L S D - W A N B E F O R E : A L L M P L S

Supported Use Case

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A F T E R : H Y B R I D M P L S + S D - W A N B E F O R E : D U A L M P L S

U S I N G S D - W A N F O R H I G H - S P E E D , L O W - C O S T B A C K U P

The Hybrid Use Case

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H Y B R I D ( S O M E ) M P L S & ( S O M E ) S D - W A N

B R I D G I N G E X I S T I N G + N E W T O G E T H E R S E A M L E S S LY

• There are no onboarding costs or ongoing obligations

• Instant access to our Architecture and Support Teams

• With CenturyLink SD-WAN devices at the edge of your network, you’ll see

immediate improvements in bandwidth, visibility, control, and costs

• Ask your Account Manager to try CenturyLink SD-WAN today

CenturyLink Proof of Concept Offer

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Test out CenturyLink SD-WAN and see #InstantlyBetter for yourself

We’ll provide the hardware, software, licenses, and

management—you just bring your network!

Terms & Conditions Apply

Trial Offer: Requires signed 90-day trial agreement. Qualifying business customers only. Services not

available everywhere. Additional restrictions apply. See trial agreement for full offer terms and conditions.