Orange Digital Venture-backed InterCloud & AWS Transit Gateway to Challenge SD-WAN

Connectivity across and between multi-cloud environments is evolving with the backing of well-heeled VCs such as Orange Digital Ventures, and driven by cloud behemoths such as Amazon - what does all of this mean to the future of SD-WAN?
 
Managed SD-WAN service providers are eager to cite direct connectivity to cloud partners, in fact Aryaka announced just this week integration with Microsoft Azure Active Directory to give a better end-user application and authentication experience. The MyAryaka cloud portal is now part of the Azure Active Directory Application Gallery.
 
However, there are still challenges with managing multiple apps running across multiple cloud provider platforms even with an SD-WAN overlay service in place.
 
The result of such difficulties that companies continue to face when moving their mission critical apps and infrastructure resources to cloud environments is new opportunity for companies such as AWS and InterCloud.
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InterCloud targets large global enterprises with managed deployed of apps and resources to multi-cloud environments. The company allows its global business clients to interconnect multi-cluster resources with reduced complexity with end-to-end managed turnkey service. InterCloud believes that cloud connectivity, being part of both the serverless and the containers architectures, should be integrated to the continuous integration & delivery (CI/CD) in a new DevOps world.
 
Meanwhile AWS' Transit Gateway platform offers a compelling method for businesses to connect to Amazon Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) and local on-site networks via a single gateway. AWS Transit Gateway means one single connection is needed from the central gateway into each Amazon VPC, on-premises data center, or remote location. AWS Transit Gateway supports the creation of routing topologies; the interconnection VPCs at scale; consolidation of edge connectivity; and flexibility with routing domains. AWS has further integrated its Transit Gateway with three SD-WAN vendors: Cisco, Aruba, and Silver Peak — and has integrated its service with the Aviatrix (the latter being a cloud networking startup) cloud platform.
 
These events throw both challenge and opportunity to service providers. Operators need to continue pushing the benefits of SD-WAN to end-users, but at the same time be very ready to offer customers support for smooth cloud migrations. The advantage that service providers have over InterCloud and AWS is the last-mile access piece. But failure to add value and provide an elegant and innovative service wrap (service dashboard) and cloud apps management tools will give companies that are born in the cloud the opportunity to disrupt, which is already happening. 

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