ChannelVision Magazine

tallied the market at $593 million in 2017. Surveys of Avant sales part - ners, meanwhile, show that 68 percent believe their customers will buy into SD-WAN by 2021. That compares to the 49 percent who expected customer buy-in by 2019. RDI of SD-WAN adoption by Company Revenue $1M to $10M 16% $10M to $100M 15% $100M to $1B 13% >$1B 8% Source: Avant In some ways, SD-WAN is a tech - nology whose time has come. Mid- market and large enterprise WAN networks, quite simply, aren’t what they used to be. Employees and cus - tomers are increasingly mobile and dispersed, services reside in the cloud, and prosumer applications – some that work quite nicely, thank you very much – have proliferated. And some of those web-based applications have become mission critical. Corporate workforces need access and connectivity and reliability across the public internet in ways that the old point-to-point, hub- and-spoke and star models simply can’t provide. In a survey of global enterprises from Aryaka Networks, slow application performance leading to poor user experience in branch of - fices was named as the “biggest issue” faced by IT help desk or support teams by 45 percent of respondents, the top among responses. A software defined network that thinks on the fly, simplifies manage - ment and interoperates with all the important pipes – from MPLS and Eth - ernet to 4G/5G wireless, DSL, private fiber networks and satellite – is simply better suited to keeping pace. “Oftentimes, a discussion on SD WAN begins with a conversation on an entirely different subject – most likely a value proposition around UCaaS, SaaS or some other application that requires a substantial amount of band- width or is otherwise latency sensi - tive,” said the Avant study. “In such circumstances, the discussion can turn to SD-WAN as a means of providing the network power necessary to sup - port the higher-level application that is intended to provide a competitive dif - ferentiator for the customer.” “Mid-size and small enterprises are moving quickly to cloud, with large enterprises consideration rates increasing more each day” said Gary Levy, vice president of alliances and channels at Oracle Communications. “As mission critical applications are sourced across cloud environments, enterprises are re-thinking how they are leveraging MPLS. We find that en - terprises are reducing expensive point to point MPLS circuits, increasing us - age of less expensive broadband inter - net and rapidly deploying SD-WAN.” Of course, SD-WAN’s value propo - sition early on was tied to “cheaper than MPLS.” So far, it has, and it hasn’t been a straight MPLS replace - ment. Keep in mind, MPLS, having been around for 20-some years, is widely deployed in enterprise net- works, including in the cores of those networks. According to Avant’s re - search, 40 percent of overall respon - dents that have already deployed MPLS planned to meaningfully in - crease their use of MPLS in 2019. Just under 15 percent expected their position with MPLS to remain about the same, while more than half of companies with revenues in excess of a billion dollars plan to meaningfully increase their MPLS usage. Among companies with under $1 million in rev - enues, that stat dropped substantially to 26 percent, while 25 percent expect - ed to transition away from MPLS. Significant Investment in MPLS in 2019 by Company Revenue $1M to $10M 26% $10M to $100M 35% $100M to $1B 35% >$1B 53% Source: Avant So while we can expect some MPLS replacement at the lower end of the mar - ket, say $1 million to $100 million, at the higher end, SD-WAN is being deployed to supplement and enhance MPLS infrastructures, and that’s expected to continue, at least in the near term. About 60 percent of all mid-market to large firms counted by Avant currently operate on MPLS networks. When asked about planned WAN environments, more than half of all firms with $1 billion or more in annual revenue had MPLS investments in their near-future plans. According to AVANT’s assessment of customer and partner data, most companies (62 percent) are coming to SD-WAN from an MPLS environment, although 40 percent report a near-term plan to keep their original network. Incidentally, about four in 10 respon - dents expect to replace their original network sooner rather than later. Number of Corporate IT Apps Deployed Across Organization 1-50 apps 38% 51-100 19% 101-500 20% 501-1,000 8% >1,000 15% Source: Aryaka Netwoks All told, approximately 40 percent of mid-sized and large enterprises assessed by Avant are aiming at an SD-WAN set up that includes a hybrid environment with MPLS. SD-WAN’s biggest disruption so far, suggest Avant’s findings, is in and around the $100 million and under segment. Perhaps that’s not surpris - ing. Such firms could certainly benefit from simplified management and cost savings in their WANs, and these companies tend to be less anchored to legacy infrastructure or highly custom - ized (sticky) platforms and services. One also can make a case that middle market enterprises are going deeper into public clouds and rely more on third-party XaaS platforms, at least in terms of mission-critical or near-mis - sion-critical applications and features. SD-WAN shines here by working in conjunction with and enhancing broad - band, 4G/5G wireless, DSL and satel - lite connections. VIRTUAL REALITY 18 CHANNEL VISION | March - April, 2020