Netify SD-WAN Buyer Question Bank (2026.1)

Structured questions buyers can use during RFI or shortlist conversations with SD-WAN vendors and managed service providers. Questions are grouped by category, mapped to the capability taxonomy and tagged with the evidence the buyer should ask for.

Use the question bank as the starting structure for a vendor RFI. Pair it with the Sample RFP outline and the Scoring Model to keep scoring consistent across responses.

Buyer profile and design

  1. Qbp_01. How many sites and remote users will the design cover at year one and year three?
    Evidence to ask for: Architecture diagram, ramp plan.
  2. Qbp_02. Which underlay options are in scope per region?
    Evidence to ask for: Underlay matrix per country.
  3. Qbp_03. Which cloud platforms are critical and what is the on-ramp model for each?
    Evidence to ask for: Cloud on-ramp diagram and PoP list.
  4. Qbp_04. What is the operating model: fully managed, co-managed or self-managed?
    Evidence to ask for: RACI matrix and runbook samples.

Technology and security

  1. Qts_01. Which SASE components are native to the platform versus partner-delivered?
    Evidence to ask for: Architecture document, single-pass description.
  2. Qts_02. How is policy authored once and applied to branch, remote user and cloud workloads?
    Evidence to ask for: Policy console walkthrough.
  3. Qts_03. Which application-aware routing decisions are taken in the data plane versus the cloud?
    Evidence to ask for: Path-selection logic document.
  4. Qts_04. What telemetry is exposed via API and at what cadence?
    Evidence to ask for: API spec and sample payloads.

Service delivery and operations

  1. Qsd_01. Where is the 24x7 service desk located and who answers UK office-hours tickets?
    Evidence to ask for: Support model document and rota.
  2. Qsd_02. What is the standard escalation path and time to engineering?
    Evidence to ask for: Escalation runbook.
  3. Qsd_03. What service credits apply if SLAs are missed and how are they calculated?
    Evidence to ask for: SLA schedule extract.
  4. Qsd_04. How are changes risk-assessed, approved and rolled back?
    Evidence to ask for: Change management policy.

Commercial

  1. Qco_01. What is the licensing model and are there volume bands?
    Evidence to ask for: Rate card.
  2. Qco_02. What term lengths are available and are mid-term scope changes priced?
    Evidence to ask for: Standard contract language.
  3. Qco_03. What are the price uplift conditions year over year?
    Evidence to ask for: Uplift clause.
  4. Qco_04. What lifecycle and refresh path applies to edge hardware or virtual edges?
    Evidence to ask for: Lifecycle policy.

Evidence and assurance

  1. Qev_01. Can you provide two named UK references at our deployment size?
    Evidence to ask for: Customer contacts.
  2. Qev_02. Can you cite a sector reference matching ours with measurable outcomes?
    Evidence to ask for: Case study with metrics.
  3. Qev_03. Which independent tests or attestations apply to the proposed stack?
    Evidence to ask for: SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS report extracts.
  4. Qev_04. What is the largest single-customer deployment in production today?
    Evidence to ask for: Deployment scale statement.