Will Kerr

Deciding between SD-WAN vendors can be one of the most complex choices an organization makes in their journey to a resilient, sustainable, secure and efficient wide area network. So far in CDW’s SD-WAN Vendor Overview blog series, we have shared introductions to both Cisco SD-WAN and Silver Peak SD-WAN. Learn how CDW can assist you…

[sayit]This past October, Cisco released a new flexible edge platform to support use cases like SD-WAN and cloud networking. This new platform is the Catalyst 8000. Discover how CDW solutions and services can meet your SD-WAN needs. There are three major platforms within the Catalyst 8000 family: The 8500, designed to replace the ASR 1001-HX…

Over the past few months I’ve spent a lot of time working with and researching some of the top SD-WAN vendors in the market right now to continue developing CDW’s Professional Services. In this blog series, I’d like to share overviews of each solution, my thoughts and the strengths and areas for improvement that I…

Over the past few months I’ve spent a lot of time working with and researching some of the top software-defined WAN vendors in the market to continue developing CDW’s Professional Services. In this blog series, I’d like to share overviews of each solution, my thoughts, strengths and areas for improvement that I think apply to…

Cisco Meraki recently released a new switch — the MS390 — and while I normally don’t get excited about new switches, this one has some neat tricks up its sleeve. My CDW engineering colleagues and I were able to get our hands on some of these switches before their release and put them through their…

[sayit] New technologies, such as the Internet of Things and mobile devices, are placing major demands on wide area networks. Traditional WANs are having a tough time keeping up, but software-defined WAN solutions are emerging to address these challenges.The advantages that SD-WAN solutions bring are driving increased adoption. An April 2019 study by IDC found…

[sayit]The access layer is an important — and often overlooked — part of the network. With Cisco's recent refresh of the Catalyst 2960-X to the Catalyst 9200, it may be time for organizations to consider a refresh too.   IMAGE SOURCE: Cisco Why Upgrade Now? The 9200 is a great fit for most organizations’ access…

Cisco recently released a new major update to its SD-WAN solution. This release introduced advanced security features baked directly into IOS XE SD-WAN. The release notes can be found here and more information about the SD-WAN security features can be found here. With SD-WAN security, Cisco was looking to solve four common branch security use…

Cisco recently released a new major update to its Software-Defined Access solution; the release notes detail what’s new. In this post, I assume you are already familiar with the SD-Access solution and instead focus on a few of the enhancements I think are most exciting. Distributed Campus One of the major missing pieces from SD-Access…

[sayit]Cisco SD-WAN is the new name for Viptela, post-Cisco acquisition. I spent more than two years deploying Cisco IWAN, seeing the good and the bad. After spending some time with Cisco SD-WAN, I'm extremely impressed with this new solution. I'd like to share my top three reasons why I'm excited for the arrival of Cisco…

Over the last few years, we have seen the rise of software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) solutions being deployed with great success in our customer networks. They have realized benefits such as lower TCO due to using commodity internet circuits, enforcement of application SLAs across all transports with added intelligence, and accelerated deployment and troubleshooting via automation…

Virtualization has transformed server and storage operations, and it’s changing the face of networking as well. What’s next for this evolution? Wide area networking (WAN). Industry experts expect spending on software-defined WAN products to soar over the next few years. For example, IDC projects spending on SD-WAN to rise to $6 billion by 2020, up…