Three steps to building a future-proof WAN

With ever-increasing data demands, developments in cloud computing and a rise in user expectation, your WAN (Wide Area Network) needs to always be fit for purpose, enabling dynamic growth at lightning speed. Gone are the days when upgrades would last for a decade. The pace of innovation is forcing organisations to rethink their stagnant approach to WAN based investment and design, and is inspiring changes that support agile service delivery.

Know where you are headed

Future-proofing starts with focusing on the desired long-term outcome. By putting long-term objectives under the spotlight, you give yourself the ability to qualify out suppliers with no defined technology roadmap. This will reduce the noise around decision making, enabling you to focus on the concepts and technologies that meet both your current functional needs whilst also supporting your long-term strategic vision.

Connectivity is an increasingly integral component of user-enablement services, and it is therefore a critical component of operational success to adopt a suitably agile approach for application, data and collaboration connectivity. Consider your stance on topics such as cloud, hosted voice and SD WAN, when architecting your WAN foundation.

Know your numbers and be on the front foot

Experience has taught us that organisations will need a good six to twelve months to rigorously design, plan and implement a WAN solution. To buy yourself the luxury of time, you will need to gain early visibility of your contractual obligations and current expenditure.
By taking control of this early, you will be in a position to define those strategic outcomes, tactical functional criteria and to initiate a comprehensive project plan before heading out to the market.

How do we help you do it?

Softcat operate an outcome based consultancy model, with the focus on supporting business strategy, transformation, growth and risk mitigation.

Our approach starts with an objectives analysis session, which is used to identify the 'to-be' or 'desired target state' of your environment and the required outcomes of change. Next, we conduct a thorough 'as-is' or 'current-state' assessment to ascertain the gap between the two.

Once the direction of travel is well defined we work with you to discount the concepts and technologies that will not support your requirements. This approach enables you to arrive at the most relevant initial design in the shortest timeframe. Then it is on to the build, test, refine, and deploy process.

On completion of the appropriate testing cycles, our 24/7 service desk and service management team can take on the operational responsibility for your WAN.

Our goal is to design a secure, reliable, performant and agile network that supports the unknown waves of innovation that will continue to drive your business forward.

Find out more

To find out more about how Softcat can help you achieve an agile WAN implementation, please feel free to contact your Softcat Account Manager or get in touch using the button below.