In SASE and SD-WAN, PoP location drives performance. The closer to your users and apps, the better.

Too many POCs run on limited setups with PoPs far from your real-world needs. Always ask where the PoPs are, and where they’re going (e.g. a roadmap). Good vendors will share roadmaps or even deploy custom PoPs if needed.

What used to be a secret is now negotiable.

Just make sure you’re not testing a setup you’ll never use in production.

SASE PoP locations > should be matched to your actual end state. Too often vendors have a limited POC environment and PoP locations outside of countries/region that may not meet your needs. Ask up front.

Global/local PoP locations > More and more vendors have a roadmap for PoPs or have the ability to create custom PoPs if one does not exist. This used to be closely guarded secret, it no longer is in our experience.

In our last topic we discuss Commercial constructs.