Avant, Verizon Break Down Benefits of, Partner Opps from SDN, Virtualization

James Anderson

**Editor’s Note: Register now for Channel Partners Evolution, Sept. 25-28, in Austin, Texas.**

Channel partners must evolve their sales strategies if they want to take full advantage of a new generation of virtualized services.

Three panelists will discuss the sales methodology behind software-defined networking (SDN) and virtual network functions (VNF) at Channel Partners Evolution in Austin, Texas, Sept. 27.

Avant’s Drew Lydecker

The concurrent education panel, “SDN & NFV: Making the Service Sale,” will feature Drew Lydecker, president of Avant; Bill Prange, who leads global alliances and partnerships for Verizon Enterprise Solutions; and Paul Cronin, “facilitator of excellence” for Cronin Corp.

The three speakers shared a preview of their talk with Channel Partners. The transcript has been edited for clarity.

Channel Partners: What is a main benefit of virtualized network services?

Drew Lydecker: Arguably, the biggest benefit is simplification. This is especially true at the branch level. Customers and providers are increasingly moving toward VNFs and white-box/uCPE solutions where a single appliance is capable of delivering all necessary branch functionality: router, firewall, SD-WAN, WAN optimization, etc. For those who don’t have an IT staff onsite at every location, this is invaluable — especially in retail, where there can be hundreds of sites to manage.

Aside from the white-box/uCPE model, network providers now have the ability to deliver these services centrally from the cloud, shifting the burden away from the customer. Not only is the cost of hardware investment greatly diminished, but management and patching are left to the provider, [which] is able to push out updates from a centralized platform.

Paul Cronin

VNFs allow customers to adapt more quickly. Solutions can be added, updated or removed by way of a simple download. This simplicity makes it possible to replace elements that don’t end up working without major sunk costs.

Paul Cronin: Server virtualization has made a lot of great things possible. In a big step forward, applications are no longer tied to a single physical server in a single location. You can now replicate apps to a remote data center for disaster recovery, move them from one corporate data center to another, or slide them into a hybrid cloud environment. Virtualization greatly reduces the complexity and amount of time it takes to respond to requests for IT resources and improves the ongoing management and security of the provisioned services and applications, while reducing errors throughout the process.

CP: What is one way in which the sales strategy must change for SDN/NFV?

DL: Over time, customers have been conditioned to think that they need …

… a purpose-built appliance for every individual IT need. To a large degree, this is natural, as specific solutions are built to address new needs as they arise. It is also the result of efforts to avoid the dangers associated with a single point of failure.

Sellers should be prepared to talk through these concerns, willing to gradually displace and consolidate functions over time, and understand that one size won’t fit all across different sites and customers. Just as the server world has become almost entirely virtualized, the network world is doing the same, and will similarly benefit. Sellers have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the industry, hone their pitches and fundamentally understand the value virtualization delivers in order to overcome roadblocks.

Verizon’s Bill Prange

Bill Prange: Partners would want to offer this to provide additional agility and consolidation of multiple functions into a single uCPE. Using the latest in software-defined networking and network-function virtualization, partners can now offer a full range of capabilities easily and more simply than ever before. A strategy for this includes shifting from a transactional outcome to a consultative model.

The actual basis and economical benefit to the partner is not in the elements of the software and managed services-defined architecture, but actually in the network services. We have determined that the real “money” comes when you sell these services with network connectivity. On the average, connectivity will account for about 80 percent of the revenue in most environments. Although our VNS services are connectivity agnostic, the sales strategy must include consultative services, network and orchestration management. It takes special skills for a sales organization to successfully sell these products. So the primary strategy that organizations must deal with is to determine if they can sell these services with your current sales force and what provider gives you the support that you need and helps you develop your sales force to have the capabilities to transition from a transactional model to a consultative and strategic business relationship partnership.

PC: Sales people need to transition from order takers to thought leaders helping to educate their clients about the value of virtualizing the network. Their messaging needs to change from traditional product features to the benefits of services delivered within an SDN environment. Compensation needs to incentivize sales people to shift their behavior from selling hardware to instead selling a re-occurring service model. Sales needs to focus more on formal account planning and identifying the benefit and paths that each client can take to improve IT efficiencies and legacy infrastructure.

CP: What do you hope your audience will take out of this talk?

DL: Virtualization is the next evolution of IT. This is an exciting development, because …

… simplification and consolidation of features and functionality offer tremendous benefits to end users. Hopefully sellers will be inspired to leverage partners like Avant and providers like those in our portfolio to stay on the cutting edge and deliver the greatest value technology can offer.

BP: This solution turns network services into on-demand virtual services available in both a hosted network services (HNS) platform or on universal customer premises (uCPE) hardware, simplifying network architectures by replacing complex webs of multiple purpose-built hardware with virtual network functions including routing, SD-WAN, security and WAN optimization. Partners would want to offer this to provide additional agility and consolidation of multiple functions into a single uCPE. Using the latest in software-defined networking and network-function virtualization, partners can now offer a full range of capabilities easily and more simply than ever before. But do they have the capability within their existing sales organization.

PC: Most companies have virtualized their compute and storage environments but many lag behind on virtualization of the network and associated security services. The virtualization journey can now continue through the network and security services that now occur in the physical infrastructure (routing, switching, load balancing, and firewalls). From an IT agility standpoint, network virtualization is a lot like server virtualization. You achieve the same automated operational model as you do with virtual machines and realize many of the same benefits. Modern applications require a software-defined approach that leverages automation to give businesses the speed, consistency and quality needed to support ever changing requirements. SDN greatly reduces the complexity and amount of time it takes to respond to requests for IT resources and improves the ongoing management and security of the provisioned services and applications, while reducing errors throughout the process.