Application-policy based management, visibility, and troubleshooting. Relying on traditional networking alone fails the cloud-readiness test. The cloud is not an IP-address. The cloud is an application. Don’t be misled by marketing claims – ask powerful questions such as, ”Can the SD-WAN provide SLA controls for cloud apps using a single-sided device deployed at the branch?”

Delivery of cloud applications WITHOUT the need for “bookends” or “pops” in the cloud. POP-based architectures don’t scale to the enterprise that wants broad-based cloud adoption. Security and availability issues plague these solutions at scale.

Security: Integration of best-of-breed cloud security “All-in-one” mediocre security + mediocre SDWAN blobs don’t cut it for the early majority enterprise. Native integration of best-of-breed cloud-security products such as Palo Alto Prisma, Zscaler, CheckPoint, NetSkope, etc. are essential.

Data – Control separation sounds exotic. It’s not. It simply means your customer’s data flows should NEVER traverse the SD-WAN controller. Good SD-WAN controllers are multi-tenant and cloud-hosted. Your customer’s data should not have to traverse the controller but should be direct from the branch SD-WAN device to the application-server. This architecture is essential to avoid security vulnerabilities and downtime. This is the reason Gen1 products are being regularly replaced in enterprise customers where early Gen1 deployments were made.

Infrastructure-as-code and API-led models of deployment that eliminate errors, enable scale, and provide automation across product sets are a game-changer. Customers have reported saving $550,000 per 100 sites deployed using Infra-as-code deployment models with Gen2 SD-WAN.

Data and AI-powered products that use a centralized data-lake and API based architecture to enable Autonomous functions. Just as AI enables self-driving cars, G2 SD-WAN products offer self-driving networks that eliminate manual interventions and increase business uptime.

Your vendor’s sales and sales engineering resources should only get paid when you get paid. Work with vendors that are 100% channel with ZERO channel conflicts. The pace of market adoption is too fast to deal with conflicts with vendors that run direct sales vs. channel sales.

A corollary to working with a 100% channel vendor is to ensure that the vendor has world-class sales and engineering resources that can co-campaign with you. To bring innovation to the majority enterprise, you need to scale yourself with vendor resources. It’s a two-way partnership, not a one-way street.

Expect your vendor to jointly engage to invest in MDF and lead generation. Not waiting for post-success but investing to succeed. Investing in a growth and majority market is very different from the early cautious approaches.

The early majority relies on reference selling a lot. These customers want to hear from others in their industry or vertical. Ensure that your SD-WAN vendor has an aggressive approach to responding to your requests for customer references for your campaigns. Protect your customers and grow your business.