Manda Banda is Lynchpin Media ’ s Deputy Managing Editor and Editor of Intelligent CIO Middle East and Intelligent CIO Africa . |
While still a volatile market , software-defined WANs ( SD- WANs ) are a rare opportunity . Managed-service providers ( MSPs ) still taking a wait-and-see approach with SD- WAN need to get off the fence – now . The market is expected to reach US $ 15.8 billion by 2022 – that ’ s up from US $ 4.4 billion in 2017 , according IHS Markit . Now considered mainstream , the enterprise and data centre SDN market is expected to reach $ 15.8 billion by 2022 according to the most recent Data Centre and Enterprise SDN Hardware and Software Market Tracker from IHS Markit .
The current market is maturing and is poised for growth and if you are a solution provider you better take notice . Drivers for the growth include dynamic and unpredictable application traffic flows that are rapidly requiring additional bandwidth or going “ quiet .” This has accelerated because of the “ new normal ” following the global COVID-19 pandemic which has forced most organisations to accelerate their Digital Transformation strategies .
Therefore , the network must be able to recognise individual application traffic flows and automatically adjust priority to match the dynamic nature of application traffic in a resource-constrained world .
Additionally , new application requirements and new compute flexibility due to multitenant servers ( VMs or
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software containers ), migration off
premises , cloud services and adoption of
micro-service application architectures
are driving the need to automate the data
centre network . And , network virtualisation
deployments are ramping up to enable
automation in the data centre .
And while Cisco and VMware continue
to trade places [ as the market leaders ],
showing the choppiness of the market ,
which is depending how projects are going .
Today , projects are in the thousands , and
not tens of thousands .
Last year , IDC reported that the
worldwide SD-WAN market was
experiencing a compound annual growth
rate ( CAGR ) of nearly 70 % and would reach
more than US $ 8 billion by 2021 . According
to IDC , three to four years ago the SD-WAN
market was characterised by pilots across
a small number of sites , rollouts this year
are dramatically increasing in both scope
and frequency , as are the attached services
opportunities for savvy solution providers
and MSPs .
Enterprises are racing forward with Digital Transformation , leveraging cloud applications , analytics and mobile to innovate and improve business performance .
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Digital Transformation
Enterprises are racing forward with
Digital Transformation , leveraging cloud
applications , analytics and mobile to
innovate and improve business performance .
Such efforts can dramatically increase
network traffic and as SD-WAN continues
to mature , it ’ s proving to be an attractive
alternative to expensive , MPLS-based
wide-area networks . Companies that can
displace MPLS might see WAN costs go
down . VeloCloud , a leading manufacturer of
SD-WAN solutions , touts potential savings
of three times for SD-WAN over traditional
WAN solutions . In a more conservative
scenario , I recently read a case study that
had highlighted a global customer that saved
40 % and improved bandwidth by 30 % after
adopting SD-WAN .
While the potential for cost savings is
there , other major benefits to SD-WAN
are even more compelling for customers
hence channel partners need to articulate
this well if they are to benefit from
the major advantages this technology
offers . Some of the benefits include fast
deployment , simplified security and better
application performance .
While SD-WAN is seeing high adoption
rates in branch environments , it is also
becoming more commonly used for SaaS
applications , backup requirements , and
voice and video business communications .
Some experts maintain that SD-WAN will
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