Cloud 9 Advisers - News #resilience

Cloud Failure Double Punch

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 23:07:12 -0500

Beyond the Cloud Blame Game: Why Multi-Vendor Resilience is Now a Non-Negotiable

The double punch of the AWS and Azure outages confirms the inevitable: your biggest threat is systemic concentration risk. We simplify the only true countermeasure: Multi-Region, Multi-Cloud, and Hybrid-Cloud design.

a six to eight minute read

The Mid-Market Guide to a Resilient Cloud Strategy

In Part 1, we established that the AWS US-EAST-1 outage was a massive, expensive lesson in Concentration Risk. A single regional failure, often triggered by simple human error, can paralyze a global economy.

But the subsequent, widespread Microsoft Azure outage—caused by an inadvertent global configuration change that impacted M365 and key enterprise services—delivered a decisive double gut-punch.

This back-to-back sequence of failures from the two largest hyperscalers proves a critical point: this is not about a bad vendor; it's about systemic risk. The question is no longer "Which vendor is safer?" but rather, "How do we design our business to survive when the largest vendors fail simultaneously or systemically?"

Blame is irrelevant. Resilience is everything. The only way to protect your business is to design your architecture to be vendor-agnostic at the points of critical failure.

Architecture 1: Multi-Region Redundancy (Defense Against Localized Failure)

The first, essential layer of defense remains Multi-Region Redundancy.

The Necessity of Geographic Separation

Multi-Region means placing copies of your mission-critical applications and data in physically distant geographic zones within the same cloud platform. If your primary deployment is in US-EAST-1, your failover is in US-WEST-2.

This setup is the direct countermeasure to the risk exposed by the AWS outage. Since the root cause was geographically confined (a regional human error), having a properly configured Multi-Region backup would ensure your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is met.

The Single-Vendor Limitation

However, the Azure outage exposed the flaw in stopping at this level of defense.

Azure's failure was tied to a global configuration error affecting services like Azure Front Door. This type of systemic, vendor-wide mistake—a governance flaw at the core of the provider's network—can sometimes transcend regions and Availability Zones (AZs) within the same platform. If your primary and failover regions are governed by the same flawed configuration, they can both be rendered inoperable by the same systemic event.

The pragmatic takeaway is clear: Multi-Region design is necessary, but it is no longer sufficient. It defends against local error, but not always systemic vendor error.

Architecture 2: Hybrid and Multi-Cloud (Defense Against Systemic Failure)

To neutralize the risk of a single vendor’s systemic failure (the "Azure problem"), you must diversify your critical points of failure across distinct governance boundaries. This requires a strategy that moves beyond a single provider.

The Ultimate Anti-Concentration Strategy

This is where Hybrid-Cloud and Multi-Cloud become non-negotiable for any mid-market business serious about resilience:

Hybrid Cloud: Combining a public cloud environment (e.g., AWS or Azure) with a dedicated on-premise or private data center. This provides a completely separate, non-vendor-dependent failover layer, often used for highly sensitive data or applications with strict latency requirements.
Multi-Cloud: The intentional use of two or more distinct public cloud vendors for different functions or applications. For example, using AWS for one mission-critical application and Azure for another, or leveraging Vendor X for UCaaS and Vendor Y for your ERP.

Multi-Cloud is the ultimate defense against vendor-specific Concentration Risk. When a root cause is a global DNS or configuration issue on Vendor A, having your failover or business-critical application running on Vendor B ensures true continuity. By distributing your critical functions, you maintain leverage and agility.

Practical Sourcing for Resilience (The C9 Principle)

Adopting a Multi-Cloud approach does not have to mean a massive increase in complexity or cost. In fact, when done strategically, it often simplifies operations through Strengths-Based Sourcing.

Instead of accepting a single vendor's "good-enough" solution for every application, you gain the power to select the absolute best-fit vendor for each job. This commitment to intentional, diversified sourcing is one of our core principles in action: reducing risk by choosing technology that fits your architectural need, not just the vendor you already have a contract with.

The C9 Value Bridge: From Design to Decision

The blueprints for resilience are clear: utilize Multi-Region for localized defense and implement a Hybrid or Multi-Cloud strategy for systemic defense.

However, designing this architecture is only half the battle. The new complexity barrier for the mid-market is implementing these diverse architectures without dramatically increasing management complexity and cost.

This is where the need for strategic guidance becomes apparent. You need an expert adviser to help you:

Map Dependencies: Clarify which of your critical applications must be diversified.
Define Architecture: Clearly define the non-negotiable resilient design for each application.
Source Intentionally: Navigate the multi-vendor ecosystem to procure the precise mix of services and contracts needed to execute the resilient design efficiently.

Seek out a neutral, expert adviser, removing the Complexity Fatigue and Decision Paralysis that lead to Concentration Risk in the first place. We ensure your resilient architecture is purchased strategically, reducing both your risk exposure and your overall technology spend.

What's Next?

You have the architectural blueprints. The AWS and Azure failures have given you a clear mandate to diversify.

The final, critical step is making sure your budget and contracts actually align with this resilient design. In Part 3, we shift the focus entirely to the procurement table, demonstrating how your sourcing strategy is your most powerful Disaster Recovery plan, and how neutral advisory simplifies that final, crucial move.

SMEs can't keep up

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 20:19:37 -0500

Smaller organizations reach security breaking point

From out friends at Computerworld and CSO Magazine

by John Leyden

Senior Writer

Jun 12, 20259 mins (a must read)

Strained budgets, overstretched teams, and a rise in sophisticated threats is leading to plummeting security confidence among SMEs as cybercriminals increasingly target them in supply chain attacks.

Limited budgets, overstretched IT teams, and a rapidly evolving threat landscape mean smaller organizations are approaching a “cybersecurity tipping point.”

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 report noted that “71% of cyber leaders say small organizations have already reached a critical tipping point where they can no longer adequately secure themselves against growing complexity of cyber risks.”

More than a third (35%) of small organizations believe their cyber resilience is inadequate, a proportion that has increased sevenfold since 2022.

By contrast, the share of large organizations reporting insufficient cyber resilience has nearly halved over the same period.

Skills gap leading to deteriorating security outlook

Experts quizzed by CSO said that the rapid adoption of emerging technologies — which comes with the downside of fresh vulnerabilities that cybercriminals can exploit — together with a widening skills gap is contributing to a deteriorating security outlook for small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

“Cyber skills gaps are prevalent in SMBs largely due to a lack of resources and specialized knowledge,” says Tom Exelby, head of cybersecurity at managed security services firm Red Helix. “Many SMBs don’t have dedicated cybersecurity teams, and those in charge of security can lack the confidence to perform even basic cyber tasks.”

Small and medium enteprises (SMEs) that do have budget to hire specialists often struggle to attract and retain skilled professionals due to the lack of variation in the role. Burnout is also a growing issue for the understaffed, underqualified IT teams common in small business.

“With limited resource in the business, employees are often wearing multiple hats and the pressure to manage cybersecurity on top of their regular duties can lead to fatigue, missed threats, and higher turnover,” Exelby says.

WEF’s report estimates that the cyber skills gap has increased by 8%, with two out of three organizations reporting moderate-to-critical skills gaps, including a lack of essential talent and skills to meet their security requirements. WEF’s findings are based on a survey of 321 qualified participants supplemented by 43 one-to-one interviews.

Resource constraints common in smaller businesses make maintaining even basic security posture an uphill struggle.

Steven Wood, director of solution consulting for EMEA at OpenText Cybersecurity, tells CSO: “Implementing and maintaining even basic defenses require strategies at multiple levels — user training, email threat detection, endpoint protection, DNS layer filtering, proper authentication, patch management, event monitoring, backups and drills — which can overwhelm small IT teams with limited budgets and headcount.”

Wood adds: “Given the scope of this list, it can be difficult for organizations to keep up with even baseline best practices for security.”

SMEs targeted by supply chain attacks

SMEs often mistakenly believe that cyber attackers only target larger organizations, but that’s often not the case — particularly because small business partners of larger companies are often deliberately targeted as part of supply chain attacks.

“Threats are becoming more advanced but their resources aren’t keeping pace,” says Kristian Torode, director and co-founder of Crystaline, a specialist in SME cybersecurity. “Many SMEs are still relying on outdated systems or don’t have dedicated security teams in place, making them an easy target.”

Torode adds: “They’re also seen by cybercriminals as an exploitable link in the supply chain, since they often work with larger enterprises.”

“SMEs have traditionally been low-hanging fruit — with limited resources for cybersecurity training, advanced tools, or dedicated security teams,” Adam Casey, director of cybersecurity and CISO at cloud security firm Qodea, tells CSO. “More often than not, cybersecurity is left to overstretched IT departments already juggling multiple responsibilities.”

Training shortcomings and regulatory headaches

Cyber training is another area where smaller firms are falling behind.

“Annual training modules are no longer fit for purpose given the rate of change,” says Dr. Rick Goud, CIO and cofounder of secure email vendor Zivver. “What is needed is more dynamic, context-aware education that is delivered when and where employees are most likely to make mistakes.”

In addition to challenges keeping up with the latest training, the proliferation of regulatory requirements around the world is also adding a significant compliance burden for smaller organizations.

“As regulations like NIS2 and GDPR become stricter, compliance is often left to senior leadership teams who are already juggling multiple roles,” Goud says. “Without a dedicated data protection officer or team, it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks, especially when third-party suppliers are involved.”

Worse, the need to comply with NIS2 in the EMEA region is eating into IT budgets, placing further strain on smaller organizations. Moreover, regulations like NIS2 and DORA are placing even greater pressure on talent markets and skills gaps.

Growing threats

Smaller teams, already struggling with limited cyber skills, are often ill-equipped to manage a growing array of threats. This is contributing to a widening gap in security maturity between larger and smaller organizations.

“Unlike large enterprises, SMEs often lack the budget and specialized personnel to secure a sprawling IT stack, especially as hybrid work and cloud adoption expand their attack surface,” says Robert Phan, CISO at cloud-based directory services firm JumpCloud.

Martin Greenfield, chief executive at Quod Orbis, also sees the shift to cloud and hybrid work environments challenging SMEs at a time when “threat actors have become faster, smarter, and better resourced,” he says.

Moreover, a small business monoculture of similar (cheap) security tools and much the same IT equipment — often set up in default (insecure) configurations — makes it possible for cybercriminals to automate attacks against SMEs at scale, notes Richard Werner, cybersecurity platform lead for Europe at Trend Micro.

As a result, security threats are evolving and growing faster than most SMEs can track let alone remediate. For example:

Generative AI is supercharging phishing and BEC social engineering: Attackers are using AI to craft highly personalized, fluent phishing lures — making messages harder to spot and massively increasing overall volume.
Ransomware-as-a-service has professionalized: Today’s RaaS platforms offer affiliate dashboards, playbooks, negotiation support, and multi-extortion (combining encryption, data theft, and public shaming), raising both the technical sophistication and reputational pressure on victims.

New attack surfaces are rising around cloud and identity: “Poor IAM and exposed remote-access services have driven a surge in cloud-focused ransomware and account-takeover attacks,” according to OpenText Cybersecurity. “In 2024 alone, cloud ransomware incidents spiked as attackers moved beyond endpoints to steal API keys or abuse services like Okta and Azure AD.”

“Security threats are evolving faster than most SMEs can track,” Zivver’s Goud says. “AI-driven phishing, deepfake scams, and automated exploitation are all on the rise, but most organizations do not have the internal capability to monitor or respond to them. That gap is growing and so are the risks.”

Vulnerability surge

Small business IT teams have always struggled to prioritize and triage security problems — a problem that has only grown more acute in recent years as the volume of vulnerabilities has increased.

According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report for 2025, vulnerabilities grew as an attack vector by 180% over the year prior. Looking at the number of software vulnerabilities reported, that number has gone up as well — from 25,059 in 2022 and 28,961 in 2023 to 40,077 in 2024.

“When you are a small team, that number of issues is just impossible to track,” Matt Middleton-Leal, managing director for EMEA at Qualys, tells CSO. “The right approach here is to grade potential issues for severity and then spend time on what matters. This can help every small team have a big business impact.”

Business dynamics also have a part to play in the increasing security problems faced by SMEs.

“SMEs have accelerated digital transformation to remain competitive or simply to stay operational during the pandemic,” Qodea’s Casey points out. “Yet many still lack the internal expertise to properly assess or address the security implications of this shift."

Mitigation

While a wealth of information is available, such as the UK NCSC’s small business security guide, small businesses often find it difficult to find actionable guidance.

During a session at the Infosecurity Europe conference earlier this month, representatives of the CyCOS project explained how they were offering a community-based approach to support small business in becoming more secure.

CyCOS is a collaboration between three UK universities (Nottingham, Queen Mary, and Kent), and is supported by a variety of partners, including the Home Office, National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), ISC2, the Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISEC), and three regional Cyber Resilience Centres.

During the panel, Professor Steven Furnell, a CIISEC board member, pointed out that “SMEs have the security guidance but they don’t know how to take it forward by building communities, so that small businesses have someone to talk to apart from consultants.”

Industry experts argue that use of managed security services can help small businesses to become more resilient.

“In the short term, SMBs can solve the problem by partnering with a managed security services provider who can not only better protect them and respond to threats but also advise them away from overinvesting in security tech that they really don’t need,” says Red Helix’s Exelby. “To fix the long-term skills gap issue impacting the entire sector, education is a key alongside greater diversity.”

Automation is another vital security strategy for helping SMBs mind the gaps.

“Most small IT teams can’t manage the constant churn of alerts, patches, and manual controls — that’s why automation is essential,” says Albert Estevez, field CTO at Zero Networks. “By automating segmentation and access control, organizations can reduce risk and contain threats — without needing enterprise-sized security teams.”

Link to original CSO article: https://www.csoonline.com/article/4003892/smaller-organizations-nearing-cybersecurity-breaking-point.html

Let Cloud 9 introduce you to:

Get Started Now

Bulletproof internet with SDWAN

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 19:09:20 -0500

SDWAN Makes Life Easier for IT

How Software-Defined Networking Eliminates Operational Headaches and Drives Strategic Value

Moving beyond cost savings, the greatest value of Software-Defined Wide Area Networking is the dramatic reduction in complexity, risk, and operational fatigue for network administrators.

UPDATED!

SDWAN transforms the complex, fragile traditional WAN and/or internet connection into a simple, self-managing utility.

SDWAN Makes Life Easier for IT: Four Ways Intelligent Connectivity Simplifies Your Day

In the world of B2B technology, network management has long been one of the most demanding, labor-intensive roles. The traditional Wide Area Network (WAN) is a brittle system: prone to errors, reliant on costly hardware upgrades, and subject to failure every time a single circuit experiences turbulence.

While much of the industry talks about SDWAN benefits in terms of better performance and reduced cost compared to legacy MPLS, the most profound value often goes overlooked: SDWAN makes life easier for the IT administrator and the technology leader.

SDWAN is a realization of the decades-long promise of turning infrastructure into a simple utility. It takes the complexities of link aggregation, real-time traffic steering, security enforcement, and cloud access and packages them into an intelligent, managed service. This shift transforms your WAN from a management burden into a bulletproof, expert-managed asset, freeing up valuable IT hours.

Here are the four core operational pillars that SDWAN delivers to IT teams:

Pillar 1: Eliminating the Biggest Headache (Guaranteed Resilience and Uptime)

The number one stressor for any IT professional is downtime. A network failure is a direct line to lost revenue, angry calls, and all-hands-on-deck troubleshooting. SDWAN’s design focuses obsessively on preventing this stress point, realizing the goal of a bulletproof internet connection.

Never Experience Downtime Again

This is not a marketing promise; it’s an architectural reality based on aggressive link monitoring and link aggregation.

Seamless Traffic Flow: SDWAN uses its unique software approach to combine two or more internet connections (broadband, fiber, 4G/5G) into a single logical pipe. It constantly monitors every link for critical performance metrics like throughput, packet loss, latency, and jitter. When a provider’s circuit performance dips below acceptable thresholds, your traffic will simply flow around the issue. There are no dramatic failover interrupts, just seamless, packet-by-packet traffic flow.
No Wasted Standby Circuits: In the legacy approach, a backup circuit was often a wasted cost—sitting dormant until a disaster struck. SDWAN utilizes all available links simultaneously, intelligently load balancing traffic across them to maximize bandwidth and return on investment.
Active "VVV" Survivability: This is the ultimate proof of resilience. If you are on an active, real-time voice or video call (or VPN connection) and all but one of your internet links fail, a true SDWAN solution will maintain that session. This eliminates one of the most frustrating and high-priority troubleshooting calls IT teams receive.

SDWAN ensures that as long as two or more connections are present and at least one link remains operational, the business keeps running. The system does the complex, real-time monitoring and rerouting, allowing the IT team to focus on strategic work instead of constant firefighting.

Pillar 2: Complexity Reduction (From Expert to Utility)

Traditional networking demands specialized, siloed expertise—one person for routing, another for firewalls, another for QoS. SDWAN drastically reduces network complexity by collapsing multiple functions into a single, centrally managed software stack.

Network Management as a Utility

With SDWAN, the network simply becomes a managed utility that a qualified provider takes care of. This operational shift provides immense benefits:

Zero-Touch Configuration: Modern SDWAN platforms enable zero-touch provisioning. Appliances can be shipped to a site, plugged in by non-technical staff, and they automatically configure themselves via the central cloud controller. This eliminates the risk of human error from manual configurations, failed upgrades, and security vulnerabilities that often plague complex, dispersed hardware environments.
Reduced Operational Costs and Headaches: By offloading the complex, low-level routing and monitoring tasks to the SDWAN platform, IT administrators no longer need to maintain a whole range of vendor-specific skills just to keep the lights on. This significantly reduces operational costs and the headache factor associated with managing a brittle, multi-vendor WAN.
Consolidated Policy Enforcement: Instead of pushing individual policies to dozens of routers and firewalls, SDWAN allows administrators to define the entire network’s behavior—quality of service, security rules, and access permissions—from one central, cloud-based dashboard. This unified control minimizes the potential for misconfigurations across sites.

Pillar 3: Agility and Cloud Enablement (Simplifying Hybrid Environments)

Modern businesses rely on the cloud and a highly mobile, dispersed workforce. Legacy network infrastructure creates friction, complexity, and security gaps when attempting to extend the corporate perimeter to cloud providers or temporary sites. SDWAN is inherently built for agility.

Easily Realize a Multi-Cloud Strategy

Extending traditional infrastructure to multiple cloud providers (like AWS, Azure, or GCP) or integrating with major SaaS platforms (like Salesforce or Microsoft 365) is notoriously difficult and resource-intensive. SDWAN makes it simple:

Secure Cloud Edge Deployment: With a managed SDWAN service, a secure network edge can be deployed into each cloud environment as a simple software node. This creates a secure, optimized tunnel between your physical locations, your remote users, and your cloud resources. The network is extended, not awkwardly bolted on, making a multi-cloud strategy both simple and secure.

Make Remote and Temporary Location Headaches a Thing of the Past

The flexibility of the software-defined architecture allows IT teams to rapidly deploy connectivity anywhere the business needs it:

Trivial Site Deployment: Need to spin up a temporary construction office, a pop-up retail shop, or a remote warehouse for three months? With the right SDWAN service, it's trivial. The provider can deploy the service with zero-touch configuration, treating the temporary site as just another secure edge node on the private network.
Secure Remote Workers: SDWAN principles, now integrated into SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), allow for easy and secure deployment of remote access via software agents on user laptops. This eliminates the vulnerability of traditional VPNs, giving the remote worker the same level of performance, security, and policy control as if they were in the main office.

Pillar 4: Accountability and Visibility (Empowering the IT Team)

In the old way, when the network failed, the IT administrator was often caught between two conflicting parties: the end-user complaining about performance and the ISP denying any outage. SDWAN provides the objective, granular data necessary to end this cycle of blame and improve operations.

Track and Improve Network Quality

SDWAN’s built-in advanced reports and analytics are a game-changer for IT teams, providing actionable insights far beyond the LAN (Local Area Network):

Objective Provider Accountability: You gain the tools to truly track your network quality and hold providers to task. Reports easily supply clear data on link uptime, packet loss, and even Mean Opinion Score (MOS)—a critical metric for judging voice quality. When a provider claims "the circuit is up," you have definitive proof of where the actual issues lie (e.g., high jitter or high packet loss).
Proactive Issue Resolution: The ability to see end-to-end visibility, reporting, and control allows administrators to move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive management. You can identify links that are consistently underperforming before they cause a hard outage, allowing you to engage a provider about a replacement or upgrade strategically.

The Strategic Buying Decision

The benefits of SDWAN are not a small list of features; they are a fundamental shift in how IT operates. They allow IT professionals to move away from constant fire-fighting and focus their expertise on high-value, strategic initiatives like cloud migration, security enhancement, and supporting AI adoption—which is where the business truly needs them.

Every major ISP and managed service provider now offers some flavor of SDWAN. Yet, many of them are simply repackaging old firewalls or basic load balancers, calling it SDWAN just because the box has multiple WAN ports. This is where the confusion starts, and where a mistake can cost time, money, and stress.

That is the million-dollar question: Which SDWAN platform and solutions provider is right for you?

We don't sell solutions and we aren't a vendor. All we are here to do is to help clients buy the right solutions from the right vendors. Our Supplier Portfolio currently contains over 500 suppliers and dozens companies that offer SDWAN services - let's find out which is right for you. Each one is slightly different and fills different needs, and we know all about each one of them. Our team of experts and engineers will help you better understand the fine nuances and which ones are the best for you to choose from.

Learn more and book an appointment with us today.

KITS: Keep IT Simple.

Discover SDWAN

SDWAN benefits

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 17:37:18 -0500

SDWAN: The Simple Way to Never Go Down
and Why That Matters to Your Bottom Line

Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SDWAN) is the smart solution that turns low-cost internet links into a single, bulletproof network—even if one connection fails.

UPDATED!

SDWAN combines multiple internet connections into a single, resilient path, making a "bulletproof" network - keeping VoIP calls, meetings, and VPNs up and running without interruption

The Internet Myth: Why Relying on One Connection is Riskier Than Ever

If you run a business today, your internet connection isn't just a utility; it's the core artery of your entire operation. Cloud applications, VoIP phones, video conferencing, payment processing—if the internet goes down, so does your business.

For years, the solution to this risk was simple but expensive: buy a dedicated, high-cost leased line (like MPLS) or simply buy a second, slightly slower connection and hope for the best. Both solutions were clunky, unreliable, or prohibitively expensive.

Today, there is a better, smarter, and far more cost-effective way to secure your business against network failure: Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SDWAN).

SDWAN is a sophisticated technology, but its benefit is simple: it lets you combine multiple low-cost internet connections (like standard broadband, cable, or even 5G wireless) and treat them as one single, smart, bulletproof network.

This is more than just having two connections plugged in. This is intelligent software taking over to give your business three critical, non-negotiable benefits.

Benefit 1: Stop Worrying About Outages (The Uptime Guarantee)

Imagine driving on a multi-lane highway. If one lane is closed due to construction, you simply switch lanes and keep driving without stopping. Legacy networking is not like that; if one internet line fails, it forces the entire car (your application) to pull over, shut off, and restart on the new road.

A real SDWAN solution fixes this by enabling seamless failover.

The Problem: Without SDWAN, if your primary internet line goes dark, your VoIP call drops, your Zoom meeting freezes, and your session with your cloud CRM crashes. You lose valuable time, revenue, and customer trust.
The SDWAN Solution: SDWAN is the intelligent traffic controller. It constantly monitors the health of all your internet links simultaneously. If one link fails completely—say, a contractor accidentally cuts your fiber line—the SDWAN software instantly and gracefully shifts your active traffic to the remaining healthy link.

We call this Call Survivability. If you are on an active, sensitive VoIP call, that call should not drop when a line fails. You should experience no sudden disconnect, no need to log back in, and no frustration—only perhaps a momentary, barely noticeable adjustment in audio quality. If a solution can keep a highly sensitive VoIP call alive during a total link failure, you can bet it can keep your file downloads and cloud applications running smoothly.

This seamless protection eliminates the most common and costly disruption in small business IT: the unexpected internet outage.

Benefit 2: Get Fiber Speed Without the Fiber Price Tag (Smart Performance)

Every small business wants the blazing speed and reliable performance of a dedicated fiber connection, but few want the astronomical monthly cost that often comes with it. SDWAN allows you to maximize the performance of cheaper broadband connections by making them work smarter.

How? Through two key capabilities:

A. Intelligent Load Balancing

Load balancing is the core efficiency feature. Instead of forcing all your traffic down one main line until it’s clogged, SDWAN actively monitors the quality of every single connection you have plugged in.

Traffic Allocation: It intelligently splits traffic across all available paths, ensuring no single link is overwhelmed. If your team is on a big video call (high priority) while someone else is uploading a large file (low priority), the SDWAN solution instantly prioritizes the video, routing it down the fastest, healthiest path, while allowing the file upload to utilize the secondary link.
Packet-by-Packet Adaptation: A real SDWAN continuously measures quality metrics like latency and jitter. If one link gets momentarily slow (a common issue with cable or DSL), the SDWAN steers critical data around the congestion, ensuring you are always using the best-performing path at that exact moment. This optimization is what delivers "fiber performance out of any broadband connection."

B. Prioritize What Matters

Your network should be focused on your business goals. SDWAN allows you to apply simple business rules: Voice and video traffic always get priority. This ensures that even during busy times, the applications your customers interact with—your phones, your video demos, your customer service portals—always perform flawlessly.

Benefit 3: The Freedom to Move and Change (Flexibility and Portability)

For small businesses, agility is everything. Traditional networks lock you into your physical location and your chosen ISP. SDWAN provides the flexibility to grow and adapt.

Ditch the Leased Lines: SDWAN allows you to completely replace expensive, inflexible legacy solutions like old MPLS circuits with simple, low-cost broadband links, giving you the power to negotiate better prices with ISPs.
IP Address Portability: This is a hidden gem for small businesses. In a traditional setup, your public IP address (the identity your VPNs and customers use to find you) is tied to your ISP. If you switch ISPs, your IP changes, causing massive headaches, configuration changes, and downtime. With a cloud-native SDWAN, the SDWAN provider hosts your public IP address. This means if you move offices or change ISPs, you simply plug the new links into the box and go. Your identity remains the same. This is essential for zero-downtime flexibility.

The Critical Warning: Not All SDWAN Solutions Are Created Equal

The simple, powerful benefits described above—guaranteed uptime, fiber-like speed, and total flexibility—are only possible with a true, enterprise-grade SDWAN architecture.

Here is the essential warning, based on what we see every day in the market:

Many Solutions are Just Firewalls: Plenty of vendors are selling dual-WAN firewalls or basic load balancers and slapping the "SDWAN" label on them. These devices are incapable of the packet-by-packet, seamless switching required for call survivability. They will drop your calls and crash your sessions when a link fails.
Service Delivery Varies: Even if a provider uses a reputable SDWAN platform, the way they choose to deliver or configure the service can alter its performance. Some providers "bolt on" security (making a messy, slow solution) while others offer true, unified security (SASE). The difference in performance is massive.

If you think SDWAN makes sense for your business, you must check with a neutral third-party adviser first. The market is too complicated, and the stakes are too high to risk a costly mistake.

Let Cloud 9 Advisers help you make the right choice.

We are vendor-neutral technology advisers. We don’t push products; we simply help you evaluate the three main architectural models—DIY, Hybrid, and Cloud-Native—and shortlist the solutions that truly deliver all the benefits described here. We ensure you get a robust, resilient network that protects your business, saves you money, and delivers the ultimate benefit: peace of mind.

KITS: Keep IT Simple.

More about SDWAN

Will the real SDWAN please stand up

Thu, 09 Aug 2018 17:54:38 -0500

The Three Architectures of SDWAN: How to Spot the 'Real Deal' in a Crowded Market

Understanding the Three Architectures That Dictate Performance

A comprehensive breakdown of the SDWAN landscape, revealing why the deployment model—On-Premise, Hybrid, or Cloud-Native—is the ultimate determinant of network resilience and quality.

Updated!

The three primary SDWAN architectures illustrate varying levels of control, scalability, and resilience.

Understanding the Three Architectures That Dictate Performance

In the ongoing digital transformation of the enterprise, Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SDWAN) is no longer a cutting-edge technology—it is the de facto standard for a bulletproof internet and WAN connection strategy.

Yet, despite its ubiquity, SDWAN remains one of the most misused and misunderstood terms in B2B technology. With every carrier, vendor, and service provider claiming to offer an SDWAN solution, the market is thoroughly flooded. The resulting confusion forces IT leaders to sift through marketing claims that often mask an unfortunate truth: not all SDWAN solutions are created equal.

At Cloud 9 Advisers, we cut through this noise by asserting that the capability of an SDWAN solution is determined not by its feature checklist, but by its core architecture. You must look beyond the box and understand the deployment model. When you ask, "Will the real SDWAN please stand up?" you are really asking, "Which architecture provides the resilience, performance, and simplicity my modern, cloud-centric business requires?"

To answer this, we must first dismiss the flawed approaches that pre-date true SDWAN innovation.

The Flawed "Old Way": Why Legacy Solutions Fall Short

Before the rise of modern SDWAN, organizations attempted to solve connectivity and resilience challenges using traditional network technologies. While these tools are essential for other tasks, they fail miserably when asked to manage application-aware traffic over disparate public internet links.

1. Dual-WAN Firewalls and Simple Load Balancers

The most common confusion is equating an SDWAN appliance with a firewall that simply has two public internet ports.

Linear Failover: Dual-WAN firewalls typically operate on a rigid, linear failover model: they use one link until it fails completely, and then switch to the second. This transition is almost never seamless, resulting in session drops, VPN crashes, and interrupted calls.
Outbound-Only QoS: Traditional firewalls and simple load balancers lack the global context needed to control inbound traffic quality. They can prioritize your internal traffic moving out but are blind to sensitive traffic coming in, crippling bidirectional communications like VoIP or high-resolution video conferencing.
No Seamless IP Portability: If your primary public IP address fails, your entire session must restart. The appliance cannot gracefully shift your identity to a secondary link, making it a critical point of failure for services relying on that fixed IP.

2. Traditional Routing Protocols (BGP and MPLS)

Traditional enterprise solutions, while powerful in their context, are ill-suited for today's dynamic cloud connectivity needs.

BGP (Border Gateway Protocol): BGP is the routing protocol of the internet core, excellent for managing large traffic blocks. However, for the enterprise edge, it is complex, expensive, and crucially, blind to real-time link performance. BGP routes traffic based on path availability, not on link quality (latency, jitter, and packet loss)—metrics that are essential for modern applications.
MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching): MPLS provided the enterprise-grade guarantee of QoS over a single, private connection. While reliable, it is expensive, slow to deploy, lacks flexibility, and cannot efficiently steer cloud-bound traffic, forcing businesses to backhaul all data through the central data center—a crippling expense in the age of SaaS.

True SDWAN was invented precisely to overcome the cost, complexity, and performance limitations of these "old ways." It achieves this through one of three architectural approaches.

The Three Primary Architectures of SDWAN

The core of an SDWAN solution is the control plane—the intelligence that measures link quality, applies business policies, and steers traffic. The three architectures are defined by where this control plane resides and how it interacts with the physical network edge.

Architecture 1 - Edge-Based: DIY/On-Premise SDWAN (SDWAN Lite)

This model is the closest to the legacy router approach and represents the most basic level of SDWAN functionality.

Description: The entire control and data plane resides in appliances deployed at each physical location. They communicate site-to-site via encrypted tunnels over the public internet. Management and orchestration are performed via a separate, customer-hosted controller (physical or virtual).
Pros: Offers full control over the hardware, often lower licensing costs, and can be integrated into existing network segments easily. It is an excellent, low-cost replacement for legacy site-to-site VPNs.
Cons:Limited Scalability and Resilience. This model still places the burden of public IP address management and global gateway provision on the customer. It struggles to provide seamless failover, offers generally poor cloud connectivity (as traffic still hits the internet without intelligent steering), and requires complex configuration as the network grows. It rarely offers the advanced, application-aware intelligence needed for a dispersed workforce.

Architecture 2 - Gateway-Based: Hybrid/Distributed SDWAN (The Service Provider Model)

This is the architecture most often sold by large telecom carriers and managed service providers.

Description: The customer places an SDWAN appliance at the edge, but this appliance connects to a provider-managed backbone. The provider hosts the control plane and gateways within their own Points of Presence (PoPs) or cloud-based controllers. Traffic is optimized and managed within the provider's private network before exiting to the public internet or cloud.
Pros: Simplicity of managed service, reduced operational burden on the customer, and better performance than DIY, especially if traffic needs to move between customer sites that share the provider's backbone.
Cons:Security Fragmentation and Performance Cliffs. Security is often service-chained, meaning the SDWAN (the network) is separate from the security stack (firewalls, web gateways). Performance degrades significantly once traffic leaves the provider’s managed network. Furthermore, this model introduces vendor lock-in to the provider’s specific backbone and PoP locations.

Architecture 3 - POP-Based: Cloud-Native/Cloud-First SDWAN (The "Real Deal" SASE Enabler)

This architecture is the most advanced, representing the full realization of Software-Defined WAN and the fundamental requirement for Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) convergence.

Description: Both the control plane and the data plane are delivered via a global, unified software fabric hosted entirely in the cloud, utilizing a vast, highly distributed network of PoPs. The physical appliance or software agent (for mobile users) simply connects to the nearest cloud PoP, and all security and network intelligence are applied from there.
Pros:True Resilience and IP Portability. Because public IP addresses and session management are handled in the cloud fabric, these solutions can deliver truly seamless failover (even active calls survive). They offer built-in, unified security (SASE), global scalability, and real-time, packet-by-packet optimization for both inbound and outbound traffic. This model is built for the cloud, by the cloud.
Cons: Requires trusting the vendor's global network footprint and architecture. It also usually involves a higher cost model reflecting the delivered features and massive infrastructure investment by the vendor.

The Cloud 9 Standard: A Non-Negotiable Checklist

If you are evaluating an SDWAN solution, you must hold it to a higher standard—a standard that only Architecture 3 consistently delivers. Anything less represents a compromise on resilience and performance.

The real solution must deliver these four capabilities, which are based on the advanced concept of a cloud-based control plane:

1. Truly Seamless Failover and IP Address Portability

This is the ultimate test. As we discussed in our article on call survivability, if you are on an active, highly sensitive call—and all but one of your internet links fail—the call session must survive. The key to this is IP Address Portability.

The Mechanism: The Cloud-Native architecture handles your public IP addressing within its global cloud cluster. When a circuit fails, the cluster instantly shifts your IP identity and active sessions to a surviving circuit without interrupting the application session. This means active video calls, VoIP sessions, and VPN connections do not drop.
The Pragmatic Benefit: This also means portability. If you move offices or change ISPs, you simply plug the new links into the edge device, and the cloud takes care of the routing and IP identity - becuase your IP addresses come from the SDWAN provider, not the ISP.

2. Automated Inbound and Outbound QoS

A genuine SDWAN solution must solve the problem of Quality of Service (QoS) over the unpredictable, open internet.

The Requirement: The system must use its integrated AI/ML to continuously detect and respond to changes in throughput when sensitive traffic could be affected. It must have the intelligence to apply granular control to both outbound and inbound traffic, prioritizing what you want, how you want it, in real-time. This is essential for maintaining the quality of bidirectional communication.

3. Intelligent, Packet-by-Packet Load Balancing

Unlike simple load balancers that distribute traffic based on connection count, a real SDWAN solution operates at a higher level of intelligence.

The Mechanism: It uses in-depth, real-time monitoring of link quality (latency, jitter) and adapts to fluctuations packet by packet. It doesn't just send traffic down a path; it dynamically steers critical data to the best-performing path at that very moment, ensuring you achieve "fiber performance out of any broadband connection."
The Ultimate Test (See it in Action): The best way to visualize this capability is to watch it happen live. We encourage you to watch a demonstration of a seamless link failure to see if the session truly survives: Check out this video to see how a "real" SDWAN solution should work: https://youtu.be/4N2PM_f_8WE

4. Enterprise-Grade WAN Replacement

The cloud-native SDWAN can augment or completely replace complex, traditional technologies like MPLS, site-to-site VPNs, and Point-to-Point circuits. It provides a private, always-on, and secure connection across all endpoints while delivering far better performance, reliability, resiliency, and flexibility than the legacy solutions.

Conclusion: Simplifying the Strategic Choice

The choice of SDWAN is a strategic one, not a product specification exercise. The right solution dramatically reduces risk, removes operational fatigue, and delivers a resilient foundation for your most critical cloud, AI, and collaboration initiatives.

The central takeaway is that Architecture 3: The Cloud-Native Model is the de facto standard for a bulletproof WAN strategy and the required foundation for SASE. It is the only architecture built from the ground up to solve the challenges of the modern, cloud-first enterprise.

There are many types of SDWAN out there in the world. Some good, some not so good, and others that are specific for different applications. Cloud 9 Advisers can help you spot the differences and select the right providers for your needs. We eliminate months of labor by shortlisting the providers and services available that can actually perform like they should—and identifying those that do not.

KITS: Keep IT Simple.

SD-WAN

SASE

Cloud 9 Advisers - News #resilience

Cloud Failure Double Punch

Beyond the Cloud Blame Game: Why Multi-Vendor Resilience is Now a Non-Negotiable

The Mid-Market Guide to a Resilient Cloud Strategy

Architecture 1: Multi-Region Redundancy (Defense Against Localized Failure)

The Necessity of Geographic Separation

The Single-Vendor Limitation

Architecture 2: Hybrid and Multi-Cloud (Defense Against Systemic Failure)

The Ultimate Anti-Concentration Strategy

Practical Sourcing for Resilience (The C9 Principle)

The C9 Value Bridge: From Design to Decision

What's Next?

SMEs can't keep up

Smaller organizations reach security breaking point

Skills gap leading to deteriorating security outlook

SMEs targeted by supply chain attacks

Training shortcomings and regulatory headaches

Growing threats

Vulnerability surge

Mitigation

Let Cloud 9 introduce you to:

Bulletproof internet with SDWAN

SDWAN Makes Life Easier for IT

SDWAN Makes Life Easier for IT: Four Ways Intelligent Connectivity Simplifies Your Day

Pillar 1: Eliminating the Biggest Headache (Guaranteed Resilience and Uptime)

Never Experience Downtime Again

Pillar 2: Complexity Reduction (From Expert to Utility)

Network Management as a Utility

Pillar 3: Agility and Cloud Enablement (Simplifying Hybrid Environments)

Easily Realize a Multi-Cloud Strategy

Make Remote and Temporary Location Headaches a Thing of the Past

Pillar 4: Accountability and Visibility (Empowering the IT Team)

Track and Improve Network Quality

The Strategic Buying Decision

SDWAN benefits

SDWAN: The Simple Way to Never Go Down ​and Why That Matters to Your Bottom Line

The Internet Myth: Why Relying on One Connection is Riskier Than Ever

Benefit 1: Stop Worrying About Outages (The Uptime Guarantee)

Benefit 2: Get Fiber Speed Without the Fiber Price Tag (Smart Performance)

A. Intelligent Load Balancing

B. Prioritize What Matters

Benefit 3: The Freedom to Move and Change (Flexibility and Portability)

The Critical Warning: Not All SDWAN Solutions Are Created Equal

Will the real SDWAN please stand up

The Three Architectures of SDWAN: How to Spot the 'Real Deal' in a Crowded Market

Understanding the Three Architectures That Dictate Performance

The Flawed "Old Way": Why Legacy Solutions Fall Short

1. Dual-WAN Firewalls and Simple Load Balancers

2. Traditional Routing Protocols (BGP and MPLS)

The Three Primary Architectures of SDWAN

Architecture 1 - Edge-Based: DIY/On-Premise SDWAN (SDWAN Lite)

Architecture 2 - Gateway-Based: Hybrid/Distributed SDWAN (The Service Provider Model)

Architecture 3 - POP-Based: Cloud-Native/Cloud-First SDWAN (The "Real Deal" SASE Enabler)

The Cloud 9 Standard: A Non-Negotiable Checklist

1. Truly Seamless Failover and IP Address Portability

2. Automated Inbound and Outbound QoS

3. Intelligent, Packet-by-Packet Load Balancing

4. Enterprise-Grade WAN Replacement

Conclusion: Simplifying the Strategic Choice

SDWAN: The Simple Way to Never Go Down
and Why That Matters to Your Bottom Line