Enterprises have to choose whether they want the CE managed by themselves or the provider. If managed by the enterprise, this is called an unmanaged service, and it has the following benefits. It allows the enterprise to manage other information technology (IT) infrastructure services on the CEs, such as public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateway functionality or content distribution functionality. Many new features are applicable primarily at the WAN/VPN edge, where more advanced functionality is needed to offer the level of service for enterprise applications. Such an example is advanced QoS functionality. When the CEs are accessible from the enterprise network, the enterprise can observe and communicate the state of the WAN interfaces upon circuit or equipment failure to assist in troubleshooting, rather than first forcing a service provider's dispatch to look at the equipment. This permits the enterprise to deploy enterprise security capabilities, such as encryption, directly on the CE instead of having to provide a second router to interface with a service provider's managed router. The following may be considered suitable questions to cover these issues:
|