January 2019 – garagegeekblog

January 29, 2019March 2, 2021

Multi-Cloud Strategy needs Multiple Cloud Connectivity

Information and technology is no longer the domain of the IT department. In fact, smart IT Operations work with the Business and Developers to deliver outcomes. And outcomes are based on what’s, quickest and easiest, regardless of where from. Here, it’s about taking a service and application orientated approach. Forward thinking IT Operations use Cloud services to be adaptive for their Business resulting in continued revenue generating income.

So, now we see legacy email services have moved to Office 365. We see AWS, and more, providing IaaS and developer platform services. We see reliable telephony (VOIP) and conferencing delivered across the internet. And we see many business applications delivered as services from PaaS and SaaS providers.

But what does this mean to your network? Well, to think multi-cloud, you’ve got to connect multiple clouds. But it’s not enough connecting each Cloud service as a VPN through the corporate Head Office internet link. This approach may be fine for a while, and for Head Office, but for branch offices latency will certainly frustrate users.

Take for example the diagram below. Here’s a traditional approach we’re all familiar with. Branch offices and Head Office are connected using the corporate WAN. But all Internet traffic goes through the Head Office. Now this was fine when email, applications, data, and telephony all resided within the Head Office server room. But now as more services move to the Cloud, this single channel will become a bottleneck.

Therefore, multi-cloud strategies must include multiple cloud connectivity. For sure, multi-cloud is now main stream. From start-ups, to SMBs, to large Enterprise its realized modern business cannot be delivered from by a single IT department and legacy server room. We see as successful business digitally accelerates transformation of operations, business process, products and services, even more Cloud partnerships are required, “One Cloud is not Enough”.

Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is the next revolution in Cloud connectivity enabling the secured delivery of multiple Cloud services directed at Head Office and Branch Offices. So what is SD-WAN? Probably the easiest way for me to explain is by comparison….

Years ago when architecting SMB Branch Office WAN solutions I’d use Business Broadband, a Cisco Broadband router, and in-built point-to-point VPN capabilities. This enabled cost effective connectivity to Head Office. Now this solution was quicker to deploy than the standard 90 days required for MPLS. And at a fraction of MPLS cost. But I soon ran into problems:

Each time I added an office I also added another router that required installation, support and management. So, as a solution it just wasn’t scalable.
Broadband bandwidth and reliability varied from city to city. Get service disruption and my phone would glow red hot.
When we moved to Office 365 these offices suffered. Result….angry users.

But the theory was sound. Using the internet as a channel to connect Branch Offices works.

Now with increasing bandwidth and stability, Broadband and 4G offers more. So, move the clock forward, Telcos and Service Providers are now able to deliver SD-WAN solutions. Using simplistic x86 appliance type hardware running virtualization network functions (VNFs), SD-WAN promises to solve the network cost and complexity problems faced with multi-cloud service delivery.

Now a single bundled appliance can provide:

uCPE x86 appliance (Universal Customer Premises Equipment)
MPLS router function
Broadband router function
4G/LTE radio access
Automatic failover between networks (MPLS to Broadband, Broadband to 4G)
Abstracted, virtualization network functions
- Firewall
- Cloud Gateways
- VPN
- Network QoS
- Load balancer
- WAN optimisation/acceleration
- More…

So what’s under the hood of an SD-WAN appliance…..? Like server virtualization before we’ve got shared x86 resources (CPU, Mem, Disk, Networks), with a hypervisor layered on top. So now rather than a server room filled with physical firewalls, routers, gateways, WAN accelerators, etc., and all that spaghetti cabling, we consolidate network functions using VNFs. So, virtual networks have caught up with virtual servers. Below we see a logical diagram of a SD-WAN, uCPE appliance hosting VNFs.

The same benefits we’ve experienced with server virtualization for the last 15 years are now at the network edge. Network devices are just VMs that can be swapped, changed, deleted and easily managed remotely without site visits. Also, we’ve got choice as VNFs are not limited to a single vendor. Cisco, Nokia, SonicWall, Riverbed, and more, all have been busy turning their legacy physical network devices in to turnkey VNFs. And of course if it’s virtual, it’s easier than swapping out physical kit.

When thinking about a multi-cloud strategy, a number of benefits come to mind:

Multi-channel access to Cloud services
Intelligent network routing direct to Cloud services
Intelligent QoS routing, for example, route VOIP over Broadband to save WAN bandwidth
Ability to failover MPLS to Broadband VPN
Ability to connect offices with MPLS with 4G as backup
Ability to cost effectively connect future factory and remote IoT solutions using 4G/5G

But more than anything, when we bring virtualization to the network edge, we get ease of deployment and easier ongoing management. The values of server virtualization applied to network edge. SD-WAN make a lot of sense in a multi-cloud, multi-site strategy.