Aruba Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) vs. SD-WAN Concierge

Have remote sites and need them to feel local? Want to get all your locations virtually on the same network? This is the way. And if you're like us and need an easy way to manage all your remote locations in one place this is the tool you want to use.

Incentivized

The underlying product (Velocloud) is not the issue, Windstream is. Anything this company touches turns to crap.

• An intricate system of connections that make it seem like your outside sites are all on one single LAN
• Well priced in their category as others are a bit pricier for the same services
• Aruba is backed by a well staffed support team that can get you through your issues

Incentivized

• Failover is easy, no single point of failure, provided you have the bandwidth.

• The right support team for your product can be difficult to get ahold of
• Integration with Cisco is not as super tight as integration with Aruba devices
• Some of the advanced features are difficult to use

Incentivized

• While the product may work decently once implemented, Windstream is a constant roadblock.
• Trouble issues need to be escalated before people will bother to work on them.

• Changed the way we manage remote sites
• Saved us funds in the LAN budget
• Created new opportunities to roll out functions at these sites

Incentivized

• One outage on our main site cost over 500K in lost revenue for a day, Windstream was unapologetic for failing to set a QOS policy right during cutover.
• We needed to get a building re-wired to get the install at one location going. Windstream said, let us quote it... It took them 2 months to get us a quote that was 4x higher than a local provider. Thankfully, this didn't impact the deployment schedule.