VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN Reviews

I have to set up SD-WAN infrastructure for a large global carrier company in China. Initially, we discuss with the partner the number of users and networks within China to decide the number of VCE VCGs needed. Various models of the VCG are deployed at customer sites, and orchestrators are set up in Shanghai and Beijing to serve customers. We deploy six VCGs in North and South China to support customers in different cities. A co-management ratio is agreed upon, granting administrative rights to partners for configuring the VC VCG through the VCO.

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN is recognized as an SD-WAN leader, offering user-friendly solutions that help end customers and enterprises solve network optimization issues efficiently. Its proprietary Dynamic Multipath Optimization (DMP) technology is regarded as the most powerful and valuable function by VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN. I see customer transformation to VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN networks showing a 30 to 40 percent increment per year.

One of the solution's most valuable features is the VMware core automation stack at an SDDC. It includes NSX, the VMware virtualization layer for the networks (the LAN virtualization), which works extremely well with the VMware SD-WAN solution and is the primary advantage over all the others. None of the other vendors could integrate with the virtual LAN, making it quite complicated and virtualized to be fully automized.

The other extremely nice function from some vendors is that VMware has been integrating VMware SD-WAN with the cloud vendors or software-defined networking. Microsoft Azure is the most important because I work mostly with Azure customers. So far, VMware is the only SD-WAN solution that integrates with Azure Virtual WAN. 

Furthermore, if you want to fully utilize the cloud vendors' hardware networking, as in Azure Virtual WAN, Azure backbone, Microsoft and VMware support everything. No other vendors provide those two. An important element for my customers was their use of different hardware stacks for networking and security. If you go for a software-only product, like VMware, you don't need to replace your firewalls and routers immediately. This is where Fortinet and Cisco differ significantly from VMware.

To improve the product, the company, alone or with a good partner, should manufacture their own hardware brand with boxes to make the product more shippable.  

Implementing VMware is much more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive than implementing Fortinet or Check Point. With Fortinet, you pay a couple of hundred dollars for hosting and a low-cost firewall, there's only one box to ship to each site, and it's much easier to manage.

Moreover, it would be easy for the large telecom operators and system integrators to sell the solution. It would also be a good fit for customers with multiple small offices, who I currently advise to choose hardware-vendor SD-WAN solutions over VMware.

We use it for our remote office WAN connectivity.

The dynamic multi-path optimization feature is good because we don't have to worry about routing. It's more dynamic. In traditional routing, it was a bit challenging. DMPO takes care of the routing on its own, and it's more intelligent. It's a load balancer, so we don't have to do anything for load balancing between transport circuits. It does it own its own. 

I provide VMware virtual cloud to my clients. There are several in Taiwan and across different countries. 

I implement the VMware SD-WAN solution in the manufacturing industry and the banking industry.

 Each client is different and has a different network design, and they work in different infrastructures. We faced different challenges and tried to resolve them. If we changed the topology, we had to resolve new problems.

In the cluster, I've learned to utilize the HA mode for improvements. And the integration of Ampere as a service and the Internet service enhances high availability functions.

The second feature is that because of the VeloCloud SD-WAN, we can exceed the application service. We define the quality of service layer to improve their application service experience globally. 

The third feature is enhancing the firewall service in the SD-WAN solution to help the equipment protect themselves from network attacks.

VMware solution could analyze the data through the site and the detection. We define the policy. For example, we define the ERP service in the high-level quality of service. But, after changing the file transfer policy label, when we try to go through the virtualized environment, the solution recognizes the package very fast. In the banking industry, I did a POC to compare the virtual solution and the multicast solution. I can clearly see the result when the traffic enters different devices, and the reception speed is different. VMware Cloud mainly surprised me because the speed is very, very fast.

When the type of package enters the equipment, it breaks a line in the reception speed. It’s very, very fast. So it surprised me.

I work for a supply chain and we have a site where we want to offload the internet traffic and get to the application, etc. Some of the cloud applications go out directly and automatically through the SD-WAN device to the internet, so it is local and does not go to the MPLS. We can load balance those applications.

Their QOE, or Quality Of Experience, is the most valuable feature. Basically, VeloCloud measures the latency and the chatter and everything on a voice application, and it just routes the traffic or duplicates the packets according to that chatter. 

They have a lot of built-ins. There are so many applications defined inside the solution. It makes it so that we don't have to create some policies. Each and every application is already defined in it.

The biggest benefit to SD-WAN is with VoIP. Any real-time data transfer where you cannot have any latency and packet delivery.

What VeloCloud provides is a solution that maintains data integrity. 

The biggest challenge for voice over IP telephone systems, are real-time and also video, and any kind of video conferencing. 

That type of thing, if there are any latencies, you're going to get trashy voice calls and also a lot of intermittent ghosting on conference calls. That's where VeloCloud comes in. They provide a resilient connectivity points system. 

Your connectivity is pretty much preserved.

A lot of companies are moving over to VoIP because they're cheaper. It's a cheaper telephony system than regular phone PBX systems. So, any major company is moving towards a hosted or internal VoIP solution. Again, the biggest challenge is point-to-point latency.

Our clients use the product for connectivity in their headquarters and branches. They use the product for cloud connectivity in their branches.

The solution helps connect the branches to the cloud. It's the most desirable technology at this time. The product is consistent and is one of the best despite the competition. It provides a variety of solutions. They are always up to date with the features.

My company uses this solution to migrate workloads between clouds.  When  doing quality assurance testing or developing a new release, we'll move environments back and forth.

Extending VLAN across clouds seamlessly is a great value.