Wide-area network (WAN) architecture is transitioning from a hub-and-spoke design to a businesswide WAN fabric. Tech leaders have started to use some type of software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) and Zero Trust Edge (ZTE) features or plan to do so. However, implementing SD-WAN capabilities comes at a cost — many enterprise teams don’t have the resources to make it a reality and look for outside help to augment their own resources. This report describes 14 criteria that networking teams should use as a starting point to evaluate a provider’s ability to meet the organization’s needs and not worry about the provider’s underlying hardware.