To deliver on the promise of SD-WAN to simplify customers' networks, Orange's John Isch says the operator often approaches customers with its Multi-Source Service Integration (MSI) platform as a first step.

With MSI, Orange can bundle in underlay connectivity with Orange's Flexible SD-WAN overlay. John Isch, practice director of the Network and Voice Center of Excellence for Orange Business Services, says it's important to customers to have a single point of contact and responsibility for their network, and the MSI approach has proven to be an effective way to start the SD-WAN conversation with customers.

"The MSI approach allows us to simplify the transformation of the network," says Isch. "When you boil it down, what makes it attractive to customers is taking what could be a complex transformation and making it simple."

The managed service approach to SD-WAN has been steadily gaining traction over the DIY approach as enterprise customers recognize a benefit to having one point of contact for any issues that arise as they seek to simplify access to their cloud applications.

"SD-WAN is a way to improve cloud access, application visibility and security," says Isch. He adds that he sometimes jokes with customers that "SD-WAN is really simple if you're Internet only and don't have an existing network." In other words, while the market may tout SD-WAN as easy to deploy, most customers aren't operating in greenfield environments and are looking to service providers to manage their connectivity plus their SD-WAN service.

"We're looking at SD-WAN as a way to 'co-innovate' with customers," explains Isch. "This has been much more collaborative with our customers to your point that customers are finding out this is more complicated [than expected]. We ask, 'What's your pain point and how can we fix it?' All our SD-WAN deployments to date have been opportunities for co-innovation."

In a recent podcast with Light Reading, John Isch discusses how Orange 'co-innovates' with SD-WAN customers, and shares several case studies on what this process looks like by describing collaborations with its SD-WAN customers Siemens and Sony.

In addition to the podcast, John Isch will deliver a presentation during the "Lightning Talk - WAN OFF: SD-WAN, a Longterm Business Model for Virtualized Services, or just a One-Off?" at Light Reading's Network Virtualization & SDN Americas event, Sept. 17-19 in Dallas. Joining John Isch on the panel are Rami Yaron, co-chair of the Marketing and Education Committee for MEF; Wadah Ely, GM of Enterprise Networks & Cloud for Bell Canada; and Scott Irwin, Sr. Director SD-WAN, Frontier Communications.

"Attending this event is about engaging with the ecosystem of players one-on-one about what they're doing, what they see in the market, how they're addressing things, and share ideas," says Isch.

At the NV & SDN Americas event, Isch will also discuss why its important to start conversations with customers interested in SD-WAN by discussing their cybersecurity requirements.

"The reason they're going down this road is the cloud -- they need a more efficient way to deal with cloud traffic in their network and SD-WAN is an efficient way to do that," says Isch. "However, changing access is a security question so we have to have that security conversation early on."

Deep dive into real-world issues and virtualization deployment challenges with industry leaders. Join Light Reading at the annual Network Virtualization & SDN Americas event in Dallas, September 17-19. Register now for this exclusive opportunity to learn from and network with industry experts. Communications service providers get in free!

To hear from John Isch directly and have the opportunity to network with him and other service provider executives from AT&T Business, Verizon, CenturyLink, Spectrum Enterprise, Windstream, TELUS and more, register for Light Reading's Networking Virtualization & SDN Americas event here . We hope to see you in Dallas!

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— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Senior Editor, Light Reading