ChannelVision September

business users to dispersed and in-

creasingly prevalent cloud- and SaaS-

based applications. In other words, if

most applications are in the cloud, a

dedicated link between a branch of-

fice and a company data center could

prove redundant. Some proponents of

SD-WAN have even posed questions

concerning whether or not SD-WAN is a

replacement for MPLS.

Familiarity with SD-WAN Among

Network Pros

Extremely familiar

11%

Very familiar

22%

Moderately familiar

31%

Somewhat familiar

24%

Not familiar

13%

Source: Webtorials, 2016

The short answer is: no, at least

not yet. While SD-WAN can reduce

the dependency on MPLS, and may

serve as an alternative in some in-

stances, MPLS still provides levels of

performance that SD-WAN cannot yet

duplicate. What’s more certain, how-

ever, SD-WAN does have distinct ad-

vantages over MPLS in terms of agility,

flexibility and simplicity, all of which are

increasingly important to operating net-

works today and in the future.

SD-WAN, which consolidates and

virtualizes the control function of a net-

work into an SDN con-

troller that abstracts the

user’s private network

services from the under-

lying IP network, is still

a relatively young and

emerging architecture.

Various surveys suggest

about 3 percent to 11

percent of organizations

have implemented SD-

WAN somewhere within

their networks. Gartner

this summer estimated

that between 500 and

1,000 organizations

have purchased and

are deploying SD-WAN

products. At the same

time, strong interest and intent appear

to suggest significant uptake could oc-

cur in the near term.

In 2015, for instance, only 15 per-

cent of network professionals surveyed

by Webtorials were either very or

extremely familiar with the concept of

SD-WAN. One year later, bolstered by

substantial media coverage and ven-

dor educational efforts, the number of

those very or extremely familiar more

than doubled to a third of respondents.

When asked about their evaluation

and implementation plans, 29 percent

of network professionals say they are

currently actively analyzing the poten-

tial value that SD-WAN offers, while

another 26 percent say they will likely

analyze it sometime in the next year.

Just over a third of network profession-

als either have decided to hold off with

plans or have not made any analysis

of SD-WAN.

Forrester Consulting, for its part,

estimates that about a quarter of tele-

com and network decision makers at

mid-sized to large U.S. enterprises

are planning to implement SD-WAN

solutions within the next 12 months.

That’s on top of the 11 percent that

already have implemented and the 15

percent that is expanding implemen-

tation. In the near-term, adoption of

SD-WAN is set to rise to 50 percent of

firms by next year, and in the bigger

picture Forester says that “90 percent

of network managers are looking to

evolve their WAN using a software-

defined approach.”

Gartner, meanwhile, estimates that

10 percent of enterprises will have re-

placed their WAN routing with SD-WAN

What are your organization’s plans for adopting

software-defined WAN solutions?

Source: Webtorials

How much of your Internet traffic that originates in your branch offices do you currently ba

to a data center before handing it off to the Internet?

Per

TeleGeography.com

- Broadband vs. MPLS pricing for San Francisco Q4 2014. Median monthly price:

Potential Cost Savings from SD-WAN

Source: Forrester Consulting

Implemented

Expanding implementation

Planning to implement in the next

12 months

Interested but no plans to implement

within 12 months

Not interested

Don’t know

40%

6% 4%

11%

15%

24%

0% 10%

2016

20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90

Between 1% and 20% Between 21% and 40%

Between 41% and 60% Between 61% and 80% More than 80%

MPLS - 10Mbps

~$2100/Month

MPLS only

~$2,520,000

Hybrid

~$1,200,000

Dual Internet

~$264,000

~$1100/Month

~$220/Month

Up to 90%

reduction

in WAN

costs

Internet 10 Mbps

MPLS - 5Mbps

Internet 10 Mbps

Monthly Cost Per Site

Cost Per Year for 100 Sites

18%

17% 12% 10% 7%

35%