Open Systems, a provider of software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) delivered as a service, is enlisting the aid of AVANT Communications to extend its reach in the channel.
Under terms of the alliance, the distributor will add a platform from Open Systems that leverages machine learning algorithms to automate deployment and ongoing management of an SD-WAN service to its line card.
The partnership with AVANT Communications is part of an ongoing effort to expand the base of partners that can collaboratively sell and deploy a secure SD-WAN as a turnkey service, says Matthew Krieg, chief revenue officer at Open Systems.
“We’re looking to work with a core set of trusted advisors,” says Krieg.
Rather than having to set up an SD-WAN network on an end-to-end basis, the Open Systems approach connects customers into a multi-tenant SD-WAN service accessed via an appliance deployed at a remote office.
SD-WANs are one of the hottest emerging technologies in the channel as customers look for ways to direct traffic generating at a remote office to cloud application via a public Internet connection versus having to backhaul all that traffic through a local data center using a leased line. That ability to directly access cloud applications not only reduces networking costs; it also removes much of the latency that results in cloud applications being potentially much slower than many of the legacy applications they replace.
The challenge channel partners are wrestling with is competition across the SD-WAN category is already fierce. Not only are there over 40 companies offering some type of SD-WAN platform, Cisco is fiercely trying to defend its router fiefdom by layering SD-WAN software on top of existing routers. At the same time, carriers are trying to maintain control over existing customers by adding SD-WAN services of their own in alliance with any number of SD-WAN platforms. SD-WAN services from providers such as Open Systems make it easier for traditional channel partners to deliver a rival managed SD-WAN service without incurring the capital costs associated with building that service.
It remains to be seen to what degree SD-WAN capabilities will be delivered as a service versus consumed as a platform resold by a value-added reseller. But the one thing that is clear is that networking at the edge has become too big an opportunity for most channel partners to ignore.
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