A changing business operating environment has forced many organisations to rethink their approach to technology. In particular, the increased adoption of hybrid work means businesses need to update their networks to deliver the same experience for remote workers as in the office.

Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) is a logical solution to this challenge and a technical leap forward for businesses with multiple sites and distributed teams. SD-WAN is paving the way for companies to adopt new and emerging technologies, support remote working, and deliver superior user experiences to employees. For the technology department, it frees up bandwidth, which lets the IT team dedicate more time to other business-critical tasks.  

For organisations that rely on traditional WAN, it may seem like true digital transformation is out of the question. However, with the right support, pivoting from traditional WAN to SD-WAN can be seamless, even for multi-site businesses. An SD-WAN solution will begin immediately adding resilience to the existing network as well as optimising capacity and redundancy.

For networking experts, SD-WAN, and its technical benefits, will be clear. However, technical benefits will not always be enough to make a strong case for business leaders; it’s essential to demonstrate how SD-WAN can deliver on technology benefits as well as business outcomes. This guide summarises the business benefits to help illustrate where SD-WAN will add tangible value to the business, from top to bottom.

Business benefits of SD-WAN

Deploying SD-WAN delivers significant business benefits, including:

• risk of costly downtime or slow network speeds offset by distributing load across link technologies and providers
• more uptime means more productivity, operational continuity, and increased employee engagement
• new locations can be spun up immediately, not in weeks or months
• workers gain instant access to the company network when new sites are plugged in
• employees have secure access to company platforms and storage wherever they are working
• more security for workers who are no longer behind the corporate firewall in hybrid work arrangements
• workers can join the company network securely without relying on virtual private network (VPN) gateways or complex access processes.

Technical benefits of SD-WAN

SD-WAN gives bandwidth back to the IT department by:

• letting technology departments stand up new locations and deploy applications across sites with existing links immediately, without having to wait for provisioning or change management
• preventing a failure in one service plan from affecting the rest
• scaling design using cloud-hosted gateways and a range of link technologies
• facilitating the use of multiple services in an active/active configuration
• allowing cloud-based management for ubiquitous access across all devices
• providing an easy-to-use interface to view network utilisation and advanced troubleshooting
• presenting a common set of systems and applications to end-users at any location

SD-WAN is a managed solution that is quick to deploy and an easy choice for companies that want better link quality without renegotiating their connectivity. Without downtime or complex rollouts, businesses can incorporate SD-WAN into their infrastructure, providing a net gain in security and efficiency for very little comparative cost.

Why choose Over the Wire for SD-WAN?

SD-WAN is a bespoke solution that requires a tailored approach to match your unique business requirements. While the benefits of implementing SD-WAN are significant and fast to achieve, your choice of SD-WAN provider will be critical for the ongoing success of your implementation and management.

The right SD-WAN partner comes with reliability, proven experience, and a focus on high-quality service and responsiveness, with a high stake in your ongoing success.

You need a provider to create an SD-WAN solution that is mapped to your business needs. A provider that will not only supply the hardware and appropriate setup to get you started, but will also continue to provide valuable support and useful advice along the way. And, you need a provider that has proven success.

Get a free 30-day SD-WAN proof of concept in your environment

Take the guesswork out of SD-WAN with an onsite proof of concept demonstration mapped specifically to your network.

To learn more about how SD-WAN works in the real world and how it can help your business, register for our [proof of concept workshop] and learn how businesses like yours have solved common networking problems as we unpack how and why SD-WAN works so well.

Attendees can take part in high-value discussions and will have the chance to hear about how other companies in your space have achieved success. Attendees will also qualify for Over the Wire’s free 30-day onsite proof of concept demonstration.

The post SD-WAN Proof of Concept</br><span style="font-size:0.8em">See SD-WAN Live In Your World</span> appeared first on Over the Wire.

Headquartered in Brisbane and employing approximately 40 staff, Digital Sense is a high-quality cloud business that provides a customisable and scalable multi-cloud offering to Enterprise and Government customers.

Strategic Rationale

• Acquisition of a leading Sovereign Cloud platform provider in Australia delivering proven solutions to the Enterprise and Government markets
• Introduces further solution capability in the areas of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS), Storage as a Service (STaaS) and Data Protection as a Service (DPaaS)
• Extensive Cloud offering offers cross sell opportunities to existing Over the Wire customers and offers cross sell opportunities of Over the Wire solutions to Digital Sense customers
• Digital Sense accelerates Over the Wire’s growth and capability in our Cloud Solution pillar, resulting in further diversification of revenue across each of the Cloud. Connect. Collaborate. pillars
• Leverage Over the Wire’s existing national network to take Digital Sense’s offering national
• Strengthens Over the Wire’s ability to provide a complete and integrated solution set to Enterprise and Government customers across their data, voice and cloud requirements
• High quality management team committed to long term success
• High levels of recurring revenue with strong margins
• EBITDA and EPS accretive transaction

Commenting on the announcement, Managing Director Michael Omeros said, “Digital Sense is a high quality cloud business that delivers customisable and scalable multi-cloud solutions to Enterprise and Government customers and positions Over the Wire well to capitalise on the cloud industry’s strong growth outlook. We are very excited to welcome the team from Digital Sense to Over the Wire and we look forward to a positive 2020 Financial Year, as we continue to execute our strategy for growth.”

The post Over the Wire acquisition of Digital Sense Hosting completed appeared first on Over the Wire.

Headquartered in Brisbane and employing approximately 40 staff, Digital Sense is a high-quality cloud business that provides a customisable and scalable cloud offering to Enterprise and Government customers.

Strategic Rationale

• Acquisition of a leading Sovereign Cloud platform provider in Australia delivering proven solutions to the Enterprise and Government markets
• Introduces further solution capability in the areas of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS), Storage as a Service (STaaS) and Data Protection as a Service (DPaaS)
• Extensive Cloud offering offers cross sell opportunities to existing Over the Wire customers and offers cross sell opportunities of Over the Wire solutions to Digital Sense customers
• Digital Sense accelerates Over the Wire’s growth and capability in our Cloud Solution pillar, resulting in further diversification of revenue across each of the Cloud. Connect. Collaborate. pillars
• Leverage Over the Wire’s existing national network to take Digital Sense’s offering national
• Strengthens Over the Wire’s ability to provide a complete and integrated solution set to Enterprise and Government customers across their data, voice and cloud requirements
• High quality management team committed to long term success
• High levels of recurring revenue with strong margins
• EBITDA and EPS accretive transaction

Financial Consideration and Funding

Upfront consideration of $27.0m comprises $21.6m in cash plus $5.4m in Over the Wire shares (at $3.64 per share, being the 10 day VWAP at signing of the LOI). The cash component is fully funded by an institutional placement of $20.0m (priced at $4.00 per share) and existing cash.

The shares issued as consideration to the executive shareholders of Digital Sense will rank equally with existing Over the Wire shares and will be subject to voluntary escrow in full until 30 June 2021 and 50% until 30 June 2022.

The executive shareholders of Digital Sense are entitled to receive further deferred consideration of up to $12.0m (up to $7.0m in FY21, and up to $5.0m in FY22) based on achieving agreed targets, which include a mix of retention (key staff and key clients) and growth targets based around revenue and EBITDA.

With revenue of approximately $18.3m and EBITDA of approximately $5.4m for the 12 month period to 30 June 2020, upfront consideration of $27.0m represents a valuation of 5 times historical FY20 EBITDA.

Capital Raising

Institutional Placement

Over the Wire has funded the acquisition by raising $20.0m through a placement of 5 million shares to institutional and sophisticated investors at $4.00 per share (representing a 3.4% discount to the 10 day VWAP) (“Placement”). Morgans Corporate Limited and E. L. & C. Baillieu Limited were Joint Lead Managers to the Placement, which was heavily oversubscribed.

Share Purchase Plan (SPP)

Over the Wire is delighted to offer eligible shareholders in Australia and New Zealand the opportunity to participate in a Share Purchase Plan at the same price of $4.00 per share (“SPP”). The SPP will be capped at $5.0m with a maximum allotment of shares to the value of $30,000 per shareholder. The SPP will open on 9 October 2020 and close on 26 October 2020. Details of the SPP will be sent to all eligible shareholders who are on the Over the Wire share register as at close of business on 1 October 2020.

Commenting on the announcement, Managing Director Michael Omeros said, “Digital Sense is a high quality cloud business that delivers customisable and scalable cloud solutions to Enterprise and Government customers. We are very excited to welcome such a talented and specialised team to the Over the Wire group. The cloud solutions industry is expected to benefit from tailwinds based on digital transformation, with Digital Sense well positioned to capitalise on the industry’s strong growth outlook.”

The post Over the Wire to acquire Digital Sense Hosting Pty Ltd appeared first on Over the Wire.

Hosted in the Equinix SY3 data centre, the expansion comes on the back of demand from clients for additional resource availability and greater geographic redundancy between nodes. It also aligns with the Company’s geographic expansion plans into the Sydney market. Completion of the upgrade is expected by December 2016.

Want to know more? Get in touch with our team today.

The post Expansion of OTW Private Cloud platform into Sydney underway appeared first on Over the Wire.

By bypassing the public Internet, ExpressRoute connects customers directly to Azure with faster speeds, lower latencies and excellent reliability; resulting in increased security, reduced network costs and improved performance. This offers clients moving into the cloud environment a secure, high-performing experience that best suits their objectives.

In addition to Over the Wire’s already existing connection to Amazon’s AWS Direct Connect, Microsoft Azure via ExpressRoute will further allow us to provide clients with access to the technology that they specifically need. By connecting to ExpressRoute clients are able to fully integrate their cloud services and internal applications whilst benefitting from flexible and dynamic bandwidth.

Over the Wire Director, Brent Paddon, commented that “having direct access to Azure will allow our customers to seamlessly integrate Azure cloud with their own infrastructure and other services, forming their personalised hybrid cloud solution. This is a service that our clients have been eagerly anticipating and we are delighted to now be able to provide them with it.”

For further information please contact you account manager or the OTW Sales Team on 1300 689 689.

The post Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Now Available appeared first on Over the Wire.

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At their core, both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are exactly the same system – they are a bundle of virtual resources hosted on our infrastructure, which is located in one of our data centres.

Where the two systems differ is in the level of control that the end client has over the infrastructure they have been allocated. With an IaaS environment the client is only given control over the application layer (the layer on which software runs) and the VM operating systems (via a console). However, this does not give the client access to deploy new machines or make changes to existing machines (other than those functions which are accesable via the OS). The other functions are managed by the provider. For instance if an IaaS client needed to scale up their capacity, they would need to contact their provider and either place a request for some additional VM’s be set up, or request an increase in the resources allocated to an existing VM.

However in a PaaS environment the client is given control over the management of their own VM’s via the hypervisor layer. For this reason, we only recommend clients opt to use PaaS if they have experience in setting up and configuring virtual servers. In this instance, if a client wished to upgrade their capacity, the client only needs to request the base resources (computing, memory, and disk) and they would be free to choose how these are allocated and configured via a web based management portal.

Hopefully that helps to clear up some of the confusion, but if you still have questions we would recommend contacting us.

The post What is the Difference Between IaaS and PaaS? appeared first on Over the Wire.

In response to the requests of our customers, Over the Wire is now able to offer AWS Direct Connects to our clients.

For those who are unfamiliar with Amazons B2B product suite, Direct Connect services afford businesses the ability to directly connect their WAN to Amazon via a private connection, granting access to other Amazon services (such as Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, Simple Storage Service, and Elastic Compute Cloud) at a reduced price.

Because customers are allocated dedicated bandwidth, this setup has the additional benefit of reducing the latency many businesses experience by connecting to AWS via the Internet.

Over the Wire Director Brent Paddon remarked that the offering was “in response to the requests of several of our existing clients, and demonstrated that despite our recent growth, we are still willing to remain flexible and work with our clients to deliver the best possible solutions.”

Businesses interested in utilising an AWS Direct Connection should contact their Over the Wire Account Manager.

The post AWS Direct Connects Now Available appeared first on Over the Wire.