How-to Guide to Migrating SD-WAN Customers

By Mel Giles – Senior Management Consultant
 

Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) have drastically increased the efficiency, security, and performance of network management since they were first introduced. But what happens when an existing SD-WAN itself is to be migrated?

At this point, some SD-WAN adopters may be growing out of their current technology and are starting to look for a newer, more capable SD-WAN technology. If that sounds like your organization, check out this blog post on what you need to consider before tackling a SD-WAN to SD-WAN migration.

SD-WAN Migration: Important Considerations

Simply migrating a customer between two instances of SD-WAN within the same system should be straightforward, but in many cases there are issues that can quickly arise and considerations that must be made for this to be successful.

A few of the most important considerations to work through before migrating customers from one SD-WAN instance to another of the same system include:

  • Customer Features: Identify the features a customer has access to, and map features between the old and new instances, capturing any changes required for the new configuration.
  • Command Line Interface (CLI): Identify any CLI changes in the existing instance and map them to the configuration on the new instance or confirm if CLI required changes are needed in the new instance. Where possible, have it so that CLI changes are recorded as part of input via a template rather than directly into the device.
  • Migration Timeline: Confirm when key sites need to be migrated (e.g. at the start of the project, middle, or end). This may be dependent on the technology being used at the site.
  • Data Management: Automate the extraction of customer site data from the old instance, and map to the new instance fields/settings.
  • Quality Check: Automate the upload of the build to the new instance and test, and test, and retest.
  • Automation Prioritization: Prioritize the configuration automation from the highest volume datasets to the lowest volume data sets (e.g. creating the customer tenant in the new SD-WAN portal is a one-off and can be done manually).
  • Updated Security: Define the system firewall changes required on the old and new systems to support the migrations. This will be customer specific depending on the firewall setup.

Additional Considerations for SD-WAN Migrations

Aside from the technical considerations laid out above, there are other, most customer centric things to remember when undertaking an SD-WAN to SD-WAN migration.  Here are a few:

  • Start Small: Identify a friendly customer to be the first to migrate and stay involved throughout to support them.
  • Communication Is Key: Provide regular updates to the account managers (AM) and service managers (SM) of the migration project progress, as well as what is being asked of them.
  • Alert Internal Stakeholders: Engage each of the key customer stakeholders and include the AM, SMs, and customer project manager (PM) assigned in status updates to inform them of the migration and its current impact, giving them a chance to ask questions.
  • Provide Guidance: Ensure training for the new portal is provided to customers, especially when it comes to highlighting the key differences from the old portal.
  • Stay Informed: For customers with a high volume of sites, you should have regular catch ups with the assigned PM to keep up with migration updates and ensure ongoing engagement with the customer to prevent recurring issues.
  • Project Tracking: Create a list of key activities for every step in a migration to keep track of potential blockers or issues. Use this list to estimate the resource effort required to support projects and ensure an agreement is reached to ensure resources are available when required. This might be in the initial Order Desk Validation or Order Management layers, or in the build and field engineer support.
  • Understand Risk: Identify the risk level as to whether a migration can be done remotely, or if it requires a field engineer. The reputational risk of failure without a field engineer being on-site needs to be fully evaluated before proceeding without one.
  • Plan for the Future: Determine how the team will manage blockers, rollbacks, and other potential risks before they take place. There needs to be ample support behind the scenes to ensure the migration runs into no issues. PMs should ensure sufficient resource and funds to progress the migrations forward. Meetings with internal stakeholders on a regular basis is also key to confirm which site orders have been raised into the systems, and which ones have not, along with the reasoning and proposed plan to address the issues.

It’s worth recognizing that most customers will want to migrate at least their key sites outside their working hours, so the project manager should ensure there are resources available out of hours to support this.

Even with the most streamlined of activities, a migration may need to be aborted and rescheduled due to events outside your control. These may include:

  • A truck taking down the customer’s power line outside the site.
  • A field engineer was unable to access the cabinet with the SD-WAN router in as boxes were stacked in front of it.
  • The field engineer is unable to find the site contact.

After the Initial SD-WAN Migration

Even after all sites have been migrated, there will still be more work to do.  There may be sites that need ceasing as they are not being migrated.  These must be managed in a controlled manner to ensure the network and network inventory is updated and that the site is deleted from the old SD-WAN instance.

Contact Cartesian Today

As seen from above, a simple migration within a technology can be anything but. With more than 35 years of industry experience, Cartesian can strategize and assist with all aspects of a migration. Contact us to find out how we can help your organization accomplish its goals.