16
THE CHANNEL MANAGER’S
PLAYBOOK
connecting business users to dispersed
and increasingly prevalent cloud- and
SaaS-based applications. In other
words, if most applications are in the
cloud, a dedicated link between a
branch office and a company data cen-
ter could prove redundant. Some pro-
ponents 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, es-
timates that about a quarter of telecom
and network decision makers at mid-
sized to large U.S. enterprises are plan-
ning 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 implementation. 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 replaced
their WAN routing with SD-WAN by the
end of 2018, while researchers at IHS,
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
0%
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
Internet 10 Mbps
Monthly Cost Per Site
Cost Per Year for 100 Sites
18%
17% 12% 10% 7%
35%
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 backhaul
to a data center before handing it off to the Internet?
Source: Forrester Co sulting
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% 100%
0%
Between 1% and 20% Between 21% and 40%
Between 41% and 60% Between 61% and 80% More than 80%
18%
17% 12% 10% 7%
35%