Martin Saunders is Product Director at Highlight, a Meraki technology partner
Demand for SD-WAN is growing rapidly. According to current analysis, SD-WAN-powered networks are likely to account for 25% of all connectivity revenue for service providers in three years’ time.
While the technology offers considerable benefits, it’s important to demonstrate that an SD-WAN solution is delivering on all its promises. This is where service assurance becomes critical. Service assurance goes beyond the technical monitoring of individual components by focusing on the delivery of the network service as a whole, empowering enterprise organizations and service providers with a shared point-of-truth and a trusted basis for communication.
Seeing the whole service picture
Meraki has one of the leading SD-WAN platforms on the market. One feature is the Meraki dashboard, which shows valuable insights into performance. However, if you want to see how the SD-WAN overlay connections perform alongside underlying networks in an enterprise setting, or if you are a service provider with multiple customers, you might consider adding the Highlight Service Assurance platform.
The integration of the Highlight Service Assurance platform and Meraki SD-WAN enables users to see the health, stability, and load across both virtual and physical networks. The platform draws data from the Meraki SD-WAN dashboard and combines it with data from underlying connectivity services, on which the SD-WAN relies, such as 4G/5G cellular, broadband, and Ethernet.
Enterprises then have complete visibility of all network services in one place via Highlight. This facilitates more informed discussions with service providers to quickly identify potential issues.
Connecting customers and service providers
Highlight also enables service providers to manage multiple levels of commercial relationships within a secure multi-tenancy structure. The service provider can use Highlight to set contractual SLA targets, thresholds, and alerts, and then report against these measures, all with complete transparency to their end customer.
Maintel is one provider using Highlight as their SD-WAN service assurance tool, alongside managed Cisco Meraki solutions. With an easy-to-understand view across the entire network, including SD-WAN, underlying connectivity, and LAN, Maintel has actionable and timely insights to facilitate its customers’ business needs.
“Providing a valued managed service is core to our proposition. Together with Highlight, we’re delivering a service that takes all the worry away from the customer in running and depending on an advanced network, giving them the freedom to focus on what’s important to them—their business.”
Paul Bulmer, Director of Product Management, Maintel
Maintel brings in LAN elements such as Wi-Fi and Ethernet switching and uses Highlight’s grid view feature to visualize these alongside the WAN to enhance the managed service further and provide a total, top-down picture. This increases the relevance and efficiency of communication between Maintel and its customers and builds trust on both sides. To learn more about how the Highlight Service Assurance platform can support your business, request a demo today by visiting Meraki Marketplace.