SDWAN: Velocloud, Cisco invested in them then VMware bought them

Velocloud, Cisco invested in them then VMware bought them....interesting that Telstra partnered with them:

http://techfieldday.com/appearance/velocloud-presents-at-networking-field-day-13/

https://exchange.telstra.com.au/telstra-partnership-velocloud-deliver-software-defined-business-solutions/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/telstra-cisco-back-sd-wan-company-velocloud-in-35m-round/

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/03/vmware_acquires_velocloud/

https://www.vmware.com/au/products/nsx-sd-wan-by-velocloud.html

All it really is a nice GUI on top of open source Linux with open source Quagga for the routing functionality. Quagga is basically a clone of IOS such that you can run IOS's sh ip bgp vpnv4 vrf <name> neighbor <peer_ip> received-routes and produces exactly the output as from IOS. Control plane is completely in the cloud. 

Checkout the following deck that reviews SDWAN economics:

https://www.slideshare.net/velocloud-official/sdwan-economics-101-velocloud

Cisco bought Viptela for $610m in May 2017, VMware bought Velocloud for undisclosed sum in November 2017. So it looks like NSX will be used for local networking within vSphere and Velocloud will be integrated with NSX for SDWAN branch networking. Hence VeloCloud is a safe bet (as long as the price is right!).

Notes on internet based SDWAN QOS:

Any QoS will only apply to your own traffic. The same would be true if you rolled your own VPN. The big difference is that once your traffic hits the internet, it can be dropped. This is not the case with an MPLS circuit with proper QoS. Your traffic isn't competing with anything.

Incoming traffic operates the same way. With MPLS circuits, its private. Its just your traffic. With services using the open internet, you can be DDoS'ed to oblivion, and you will never see 1/50th of the SD-WAN traffic you are supposed to be getting. The ISP will simply drop all of it.

That being said, one can use open internet VPNs to connect locations, and its good enough. More importantly, its a lot cheaper. The only caveat is that sometimes you run into situations where your services are impacted due to the nature of the connection. MPLS circuits avoid this... but they are much more expensive.

SD-WAN services just a better form of management. If you don't have a team configuring your routers, keeping the configuration secure, ensuring everything is done right... then this is an easy way to get it done. Of course, your security and reliability also depends on the SD-WAN provider's security and reliability.