The idea of a widely distributed WAN is not particularly new or ground-breaking.  For years now Network Managers have been tweaking, stretching, and changing, the make-up of their WANs to cope with the ever-changing needs of a modern business. Most businesses have (or should have) a WAN that is able to support remote working, cloud access, and the latest and greatest security postures. 

The truth is though, most modern WANs are now a Frankenstein’s monster of tools and services that have been procured to get the job done, very rarely optimised for performance or budget efficient. 

An increasing number of ANS customers are now asking for support in optimising their network. No more reactionary buys of services to support the next trend.  

‘’How do we build a network that can just handle whatever we throw at it?’’

‘’I just want to know my users can connect to the WAN no-matter where they are’’

‘’We just want a single pane of glass to keep an eye on everything’’

It’s all possible. 

We’ve all survived up until now, but the time to finally create a WAN that is scaled to handle anything, is budget-efficient, and robust is now.  

It’s time to optimise your WAN so it can handle the connectivity needs of the modern business.  

So, what do you need to consider? 

1. Your Users: Whether you have a Working from Anywhere or office-based work culture, you need to consider whether your priority is to give users access to applications, provide security anywhere they go, or whether you want guarantees of quality of experience. Or all the above. There are options to support all scenarios. 
2. Your Access: Maybe you are already in the cloud or have applications hosted on site, perhaps both? Wherever your applications are, be aware of what you need your users to access (or not access). 
3. Your Tolerance for Downtime: Assess the importance of every site and every user on your WAN. If downtime has a significant impact on performance, then building resilience into your WAN (or parts of it) is key. Additionally, what’s your redundancy plan if users lose access to your network? 
4. Your Security Posture: Just because your user is on the road or at their kitchen table, it shouldn’t mean they are any less secure than the team in your office. Your WAN, and the security that wraps around it, needs to cover everyone everywhere. If SASE [Secure Access Service Edge] is the end goal, how do you get there? 

Take a blank sheet of paper, consider these 4 points, you’ll be on your way to designing your Anywhere WAN. This checklist is your starting point to building a WAN that is fit for purpose for YOUR business. 

How do you build it? How do you migrate to it? What comes first? That’s where ANS come in.