Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) refers to renting a service hosted in the cloud as opposed to
owning infrastructure and applications, much like with any other “X-as-a-Service.” It offers the potential to create an agile, predictable, cloud-like consumption model for enterprise
infrastructure.
NaaS providers keep the network up to date, and adopting it frees up IT personnel, and lessens the requirement for in-house expertise. However, realizing its full transformative potential can only be achieved with the support of the underlying network - and that means finding the right NaaS partner.
There are a variety of factors an organization should consider when selecting a partner.
1. How extensive is the underlying network reach?
One of the core benefits of NaaS relies on the pre-provisioning of connectivity to relevant sites, locations, and geographies. The conventional approach to network procurement is quite reactive; after receiving a request, a provider either dispatches an engineer to the data center to install new cabling or issues a work order to install fiber to a building, both of which may take weeks or months to complete. However, since NaaS providers have expanded their own offers, they have already pre-provisioned all the necessary hardware. This enables the customer to make the necessary network adjustments in software, almost instantly.
This increases the end user’s agility significantly at a time when digital transformation presents many enterprises with the difficulty of an expanding network footprint as they now have to handle more users, devices, and locations than before. The NaaS provider's network footprint needs to match your own in terms of pertinent data centers, corporate sites, clouds, and internet exchanges - and whether they have reach outside of their own network footprint through partnerships.
2. Which of your existing Cloud and SaaS partners are integrated with the NaaS platform?
Since so many businesses rely on SaaS and public clouds, it's crucial to make sure your NaaS provider can connect to the services your company needs. It's likely that end users already employ a number of SaaS technologies on a corporate level and may already have integrated technologies into their operations, some of which may even be mission-critical, requiring more secure, high-performance connections.
This is increasing demand from businesses for direct connectivity to SaaS instances, which will give improved performance, particularly for real-time communication and other low-latency dependent applications. Having the ability to plug into a SaaS app directly from their own data center gives enterprises the levels of security and reliability that has historically been used for mission critical infrastructure, which avoids sending traffic over the public internet.
To ensure that they are compatible with your NaaS provider's ecosystem, it is crucial to do a complete assessment of the Cloud and SaaS providers an end user employs and any that may be on their future roadmap.
3. Does the partner provide access to the right APIs?
In addition to making sure your NaaS partner can connect to the necessary Clouds and
services, organizations must also ensure their supplier supports relevant Application
Programming Interfaces (APIs). Cloud service providers do not tend to offer a single co-defined, open API for connectivity. As a result, the workflows used by Cloud and SaaS providers vary greatly, which is problematic for engineers who depend on a rising number of these resources.
However, the advantages of NaaS platforms like Console Connect are that they abstract all of that from the perspective of the client, producing API endpoints that appear to be quite similar. In the end, yes, businesses still need to perform some internal development, but Console Connect handles the bulk of the work by building an API ecosystem that abstracts the rate of change that occurs in these Cloud provider API endpoints. This translates to giving the enterprise a solid API endpoint, a consistent experience, and making some progress toward unifying that experience.
4. How stringent are the networking SLAs?
To ensure levels of availability, uptime, and response for resolving network issues, SLAs are developed with network providers, and companies frequently end up with an overlapping patchwork of SLAs from various providers that apply to various areas of their WAN. Employing a NaaS model enables businesses to scale the network as their organization expands, reducing the number of providers and, thus, the variety and quantity of SLAs.
One approach to guarantee constantly dependable and high-quality service and application
delivery is through the private connections established via NaaS. Private links can be set up to give particular classes of service priority, ensuring that the needs of applications that are more sensitive to latency are addressed. In this respect, Console Connect offers a high-quality uncontended, low-latency network backed with a stringent SLA.
5. How does the cost of the NaaS solution compare to a traditional network?
Since NaaS is essentially using rented infrastructure and applications rather than purchasing them outright it means adopting organizations can switch from capex to opex and an increase in agility as the digital transformation progresses.
Since the network provider owns and maintains the network and is in charge of handling
software and hardware changes, organizations realize significant savings associated with
network development and maintenance.
Furthermore, capacity can be increased, decreased, and moved around the network as
required, giving more granular cost control. End users only pay for what they use, with
connections available for hours, days, weeks, months or years. Choosing the appropriate NaaS partner may ensure organizational agility moving forward while minimizing costs associated with the adoption of new procedures and equipment.
What is PartnerConnect?
Our PartnerConnect program, which is built around the Console Connect platform, gives our
partners access to the most agile network services and apps as well as an effective set of sales and marketing tools to boost client success and revenue growth. The Console Connect platform enables your customers to deploy, manage and grow all their mission-critical network connections in real-time through one easy-to-use platform.
