SD-WAN services enable CSPs to expand their business offerings thanks to the simplified adoption of standards-based APIs. Internal and external services can be easily provided to allow CSP’s clients to connect local and remote premises between them with SLA-guaranteed WAN services.
Many CSPs & MSPs are using multiple SD-WAN & SASE solutions to serve various segments of the enterprise market. However, this multi-vendor, siloed approach comes with a high maintenance cost: onboarding, coordinating, and automating new services can be challenging. But it doesn’t have to be…
SD-WAN solutions consist of two key elements: the SD-WAN controller and the orchestrator. Despite their similar names, these components serve distinct functions within an SD-WAN solution.
- The SD-WAN Controller is responsible for managing the physical or virtual devices associated with the SD-WAN Edges, which involves tasks such as configuring and activating the devices, managing IP addresses, and enforcing policies. It also monitors the operational state of SD-WAN tunnels across different WANs and collects QoS performance metrics for each tunnel, which are utilized by the Service Orchestrator.
- In an SD-WAN managed service, the MSP or CSP is responsible for operating and maintaining the SD-WAN Controller. The SD-WAN Controller communicates northbound with the Service Orchestrator via the Presto interface and southbound, via the LSO Adagio interface, with the SD-WAN Edges under its control. However, some SD-WAN implementations may merge the SD-WAN Controller and Service Orchestrator into a single component.
- The Service Orchestrator, on the other hand, is responsible for managing the SD-WAN service lifecycle, including service fulfillment, performance, control, assurance, usage, analytics, security, and policy. Its duties include setting up end-to-end SD-WAN managed services between SD-WAN Edges and SD-WAN Gateways over one or more underlay WANs (e.g., Internet and MPLS), as well as establishing application-based forwarding over WANs based on security, QoS, or business/intent-based policies.
Intraway’s Symphonica, the leading no-code cloud-native service provisioning and orchestration solution, provides:
- Native support of SD-WAN multi-vendors ecosystem avoiding vendor lock-in.
- Integrate SD-WAN service into the operation to reuse integrations and operational tools with no specific operational silo.
- Manage the complexity of underlay and overlay networks.
- Integrate an end-to-end orchestration solution to simplify operation and lifecycle management.
Intraway’s Symphonica SD-WAN solution includes a robust orchestration plane that empowers network administrators to manage and control every aspect of the network via a unified interface. The orchestration plane is equipped with the following features:
- Centralized Management: Administrators can take advantage of the orchestration plane’s centralized console to manage all SD-WAN network aspects, including configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
- Policy Management: Symphonica enables administrators to set policies that govern traffic routing across the network based on business priorities, applications, and network conditions.
- Automation: The orchestration plane provides automation capabilities that simplify routine tasks like setting up new sites, configuring network policies, and deploying software updates.
- Real-time Monitoring: The orchestration plane delivers real-time monitoring for network health, including application performance, network traffic, and device status.
- Analytics and Reporting: Symphonica offers comprehensive analytics and reporting features that provide network performance insights, user behavior, and application usage statistics.
