Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Greg Davis, CEO of Bigleaf Networks, purveyors of Bigleaf Cloud Connect, the solution aimed at several of the issues raised below.
For years, the networking conversation was relatively straightforward. A business needed connectivity, and the question was what kind of circuit it could get at a particular location. That has changed.
What used to be copper became fiber. Then, in the same decade, LTE became a practical option. Then, a little later, 5G. Now Starlink and other satellite services have added another path. Businesses that once had one or two realistic choices can build locations with multiple, genuinely diverse ways to reach the internet. That's an awesome thing for the channel. But it raises some issues: Having more ways to connect doesn't necessarily mean the internet works better. That's where our industry needs to change the conversation.
More connections don't automatically create a better experience
There's an important difference between connecting multiple circuits and orchestrating them. A business can put fiber and 5G into the a location and call that redundancy. It can add satellite and have three separate paths to the internet. But what happens when the fiber circuit doesn't go completely down and instead starts performing poorly?
That's the situation people tend to overlook. The circuit may technically be "up." Meanwhile, a Teams meeting is breaking up, VoIP calls sound terrible or a point-of-sale system isn't responding the way it should. Nobody running that business cares that the circuit is technically available. Their application doesn't work. That's the problem.
We spend a lot of time in networking talking about uptime. Application performance is the better test. If an employee can't do their job or a customer can't complete a transaction, telling them the network is technically online doesn't accomplish much.
The channel has an opportunity to solve that problem, particularly as customers add more types of connectivity.
Stop making this another SD-WAN feature battle
There are a lot of very good networking products in the market. At one end, there are edge-routing products that do an excellent job of getting things connected. If you need connectivity in a police car, school bus or garbage truck, for example, there are companies that have built products specifically for that problem.
Then there are sophisticated SD-WAN and SASE platforms that combine networking, security and a long list of other capabilities. Those products have a place, too.
Where I think the industry gets itself into trouble is the space between those two ends of the market. We turn the discussion into a battle over who has better SD-WAN functionality. There isn't going to be much of a winner in that fight. Customers don't wake up wanting more SD-WAN functionality. They want their business to work.
The better starting point for a partner is to ask what the customer is actually trying to accomplish. Do they need basic connectivity? Do they need security at the edge? Do they have multiple circuits that need to work together? Do they have applications that cannot tolerate a change in IP address? Is the IT team trying to manage hundreds of locations without adding more complexity?
Those questions get you somewhere. A feature checklist usually doesn't.
5G and Starlink are changing what partners can build
This gets more interesting as wireless and satellite become legitimate business connectivity options. 5G gives partners another way to connect locations where traditional wireline service may be slow to deploy, expensive or simply unavailable. Starlink has made satellite relevant to a much broader set of businesses, even if the hype is running a little ahead of reality.
I don't see these technologies as an either-or decision. Fiber doesn't suddenly become irrelevant because 5G exists. 5G doesn't become irrelevant because Starlink reaches a remote location. They can complement one another. That's the opportunity.
A customer may have fiber as its primary circuit, 5G as another path and satellite available for a location where terrestrial connectivity is difficult. Another customer may have a completely different combination. The job then becomes making those connections useful together.
Different circuits have different performance characteristics. Wireless and satellite can have different usage economics. Conditions change. Applications have different requirements.
If IT has to sit there deciding manually which application should use which connection every time something changes, we haven't solved much. The network should be doing more of that work.
This is also a channel simplicity problem
I've spent enough time running technology businesses to know that having a better technical answer isn't enough. You have to make it easy for people to understand what problem you're solving. That's especially true in the channel.
Partners already have enormous portfolios. They don't need another vendor handing them 40 pages of features and expecting them to figure out how to turn it into a customer conversation. Make it specific.
If the customer needs connectivity in a vehicle, recommend the technology built for that.
If the customer needs a broad networking and security transformation, that's a different conversation.
If the customer already has the security stack it wants but has three internet connections and needs its critical applications to perform consistently across them, solve that problem. No one should have to work that hard to figure out what we're saying.
The companies that make their technology easier for partners to position and easier for customers to understand are going to have an advantage. Whoever does that best wins.
The opportunity is bigger than another circuit
For channel partners, the proliferation of fiber, 5G and satellite should be good news.
There are more tools available to solve customer problems than we've ever had. But selling another circuit can't be the end of the conversation.
The more diverse connectivity becomes, the more customers need somebody who understands how those connections should work together and, more importantly, what should happen to their applications when network conditions change. That's where the channel can create more value.
Don't start with the acronym. Don't start with the feature list. And don't assume that having a backup circuit means you've solved the customer's problem. Start with what the business needs to keep running. Then make the connectivity work around it.
