6 / 36
We probably have to head back to the early years of VoIP
to find the type of excitement around a new technology or plat-
form similar to what the channel partner community is experi-
encing right now with SD-WAN, or software-defined wide area
network. Not since VoIP hit the mainstream, one could argue,
has there been a development with such a cost-saving and
performance-enhancing promise that potentially could displace
existing technology across so many businesses.
Also similar to the early history of VoIP, market forecasts
are coming fast and furious with some amount of variance.
Research and Markets, for one, expects the market to grow to
$5.57 billion by 2020, up from $4.66 billion in 2015. Interna-
tional Data Corporation has similar expectations, estimating
worldwide SD-WAN revenues will exceed $6 billion in 2020.
IHS Markit, meanwhile, takes a more modest, if not nar-
rower, approach. Cliff Grossner, senior research director for
the firm, pegs 2015 SD-WAN revenues at only $37.9 million,
moving to $1.3 billion by 2020. Grossner anticipates there will
be a slowdown in the SD-WAN market until 2018, followed by
an increase in 2020 as more begin to adopt SD-WAN.
P&S Market Research resides somewhere in between. The
global SD-WAN market was worth $220.2 million in 2015, ac-
cording to P&S, and it’s expected to top $9.3 billion by 2022.
One thing all these forecasts share is healthy annual
growth rates, with expected annual growth rates as high as
90 percent or more, by some counts. It’s not hard to under-
stand the optimism; in many ways the network environment
is ripe for the benefits SD-WAN brings.
For starters, the need to connect increasingly dispersed
and mobilized workforces has led to mix-and-matched enter-
prise network topologies that can include MPLS, EVPL and
wavelength, along with DSL, 4G, cable broadband and Wi-Fi,
among other things, depending on remote office or employee
locations. At the same time, the rise of cloud computing and
services, ranging from on-premises private cloud, public cloud,
hosted private cloud and SaaS, has resulted in a type of hybrid
IT architecture within the distributed enterprise network.
“The need for software defined networking is driven by
the need for enterprises and carriers wanting to manage the
complexity of their networks,” say analysts at Research and
Markets. “As virtualization allows companies to consolidate
lots of servers into fewer physical machines, SDN allows them
to consolidate switches and routers into virtual devices.”
SD-WAN deployed along with hybrid WAN and MPLS
solutions, for example, effectively combines those multiple
connections into one connection. And since it can be deliv-
ered by a service provider from an off-premises cloud, the
management of the network and integration of cloud capabili-
ties becomes a centralized function.
“Software-defined networking has already arrived in the
datacenter, providing the agility and responsiveness that
datacenter networks need to meet the demands of cloud
computing,” say IDC researchers. “Now the focus is shifting
toward wide area networks, which can also be optimized to
meet the requirements of cloud applications and services.”
Add the fact that SD-WAN solution providers are con-
tinuously developing and upgrading their physical and vir-
tual WAN optimization product portfolio, and the technol-
ogy emerges as a tool to address the cost and complexity
of an increasingly important operational asset.
“Virtually all geographically distributed enterprises will
continue to require WAN optimization, perhaps not for all
locations and offices but certainly for a significant portion of
their WAN traffic,” argues David Hughes, founder and CEO
of Silver Peak. “It will become increasingly attractive to pur-
chase WAN optimization by-the-drip as an integrated ser-
vice in an SD-WAN solution versus buying it as a stand-alone
product deployed at every location.”
SD-WAN in
2017& Beyond
By
Martin
Vilaboy
Software-defined enterprise WAN will soon
dominate the global WAN optimization market
Source: IHS Markit
6
THE CHANNEL MANAGER’S
PLAYBOOK