ChannelVision Playbook 13

N ow that SD-WAN networking technology has moved along its hype cycle, past Gartner’s “peak of inflated expectations” and climbing into the “plateau of produc- tivity,” it makes sense to reassess the marketplace in terms of buying patterns, usage and market appeals. After all, while adoption of SD-WAN net- working has been robust, most of the opportunity remains waiting to be tapped. As was always expected, the technology cer- tainly has been disruptive. Master distributor Avant Communication, for instance, has developed a Rate of Disruption Index, designed to represent the year- over-year shift in market displacement based on sur- veys and customer interest. On the RDI scale, SD- WAN’s rate of disruption to the wide area networking space was twice as much as UCaaS’s impact on PBX platforms or cloud infrastructure’s disruption of the legacy premises server market. And just as they were back in 2015, analysts are still bullish on the potential for growth. Firms such as Frost & Sullivan and IDC see the SD-WAN infrastructure market reaching between $4.4 bil- lion and $5.25 billion by 2023. Frost & Sullivan Powering to Productivity By Martin Vilaboy SD-WAN enters its plateau THE CHANNEL MANAGER’S PLAYBOOK 6