A baker's dozen tips for selecting the right managed WAN provider

  By SUSAN BREIDENBACH
  Network World, 10/25/99

  1. Start with your existing service
  providers. A logical place to start
  the selection process is with your existing service
  providers because they want to keep your business
  and, therefore, you have some leverage with them.

  2. Try to match their strengths with your needs.
  Some service providers may simply be promoting the
  offerings they happen to have in their portfolios.

  Make sure you aren't being force-fed a particular
  approach. You might be better served by a provider
  that lets you pick from a menu of services and vary
  the type and level of service in different locations on
  the WAN.

  3. Ask about global coverage. Worldwide coverage
  is another measure. The provider's geographic
  footprint should cover all locations you are likely to
  need in the foreseeable future - including secondary
  and tertiary markets.

  4. Try to maximize common locations. Look for
  overlap between your locations and a provider's
  points of presence. The greater the overlap, the more
  the provider can reduce your access charges. And
  some providers deliver a particularly robust suite of
  global offerings for telecommuting, including dial-up
  IP remote access that doesn't rely on local ISPs.

  5. Look under the hood. Because of all the mergers
  and acquisitions, some carrier infrastructures are a
  patchwork of regional networks connected by
  gateways. At some point, look under the hood and
  see if a service provider's network is as seamless as
  its marketing messages imply. Management
  information shouldn't be scattered across different
  spreadsheets and databases. And make sure all
  equipment is carrier-class, or the provider may have
  scalability problems.

  6. Be sure equipment is compatible. If you're handing
  off an existing network, you need to find a service
  provider that supports your equipment so you don't
  have to make a lot of changes. Some service
  providers have a small set of equipment they will
  monitor, and others can accommodate almost
  anything.

  7. Check out polling intervals. Polling intervals are
  very important, and they vary widely among
  providers. Some can poll your entire network every
  90 seconds, while others might take 15 or 20 minutes.

  8. The human factor. No matter how good the
  service provider's physical network looks, it is a
  company's human infrastructure that really makes the
  difference. Find out how many certified engineers are
  on the staff and who does the installation and repair.
  Also, find out with whom you would be dealing when
  you have to call about a problem. Would you get a
  specific person who is intimately familiar with your
  network or a different person each time?

  9. Get details on processes and procedures. Make
  sure the service provider has proven methods and
  procedures in place for network implementation,
  problem escalation processes and change
  management. Ask to see process documentation - it
  should exist - and have the provider go through the
  steps with you.

  10. Check out security. Security is critical, and fears
  about it are one of the reasons companies give when
  asked why they aren't outsourcing their WANs. Do
  they let prospective customers, analysts and reporters
  wander through their operations center, or is security
  so tight it takes a retinal scan to get in. 11. Ask for
  Web-based tools. A service provider should be able
  to give you a Web-based tool that functions as a
  virtual network operation center and lets you log on
  and get read-only access from anywhere. The best
  tools let you see all components of your WAN,
  whether they belong to you or the service provider.
  And you should be able to look down into Layer 2 of
  a provider's network, not just Layer 3.

  12. Think about who owns the fiber. Service
  providers that own the fiber and copper they use
  claim that this gives them a distinct advantage. Wiring
  causes 90% of WAN problems, and the owners of
  the wire are closest to it. They can gather more
  statistics and get things fixed quickly. Providers that
  don't own wire argue that when you hand
  management of your network over to a carrier who
  does, you have a fox watching the hen house. Those
  providers are measuring their own performance, so
  there is an inherent conflict of interest.

  13. Use SLAs to judge a service provider's
  confidence. The details of a service-level agreement
  (SLA) can tell you a lot about service providers and
  the performance levels to which they feel they can
  commit. SLAs need to focus on the availability of
  your network, not how quickly a problem gets
  reported. Make sure "response" doesn't just mean
  opening a trouble ticket, and be careful to distinguish
  between "restore" and "resolve." Restoring is a quick
  fix to get the network back up, while resolving
  involves changing things so the network doesn't go
  down again. Reporting is an important part of SLAs
  -the type of reports you will get on the per-formance
  of your network, how often you will get them and in
  what format, and how readable they will be.