We at AVANT Research & Analytics love to keep enterprise decision makers and the Trusted Advisor community up to date on what’s hot and what’s not. To that end, our annual State of Disruption Report focuses on how newer technologies are displacing the older ones. In the wake of a survey of 500 IT professionals, the 2020 edition is now being prepared. It’s not out yet, but stay tuned.
Without giving away too much too soon, here’s a “lil sumthin” from the SD-WAN section, just to whet your whistle.
Turns out that 60% of the respondents, representing a wide variety of vertical markets intend to increase their use of SD-WAN between now and the end of 2021. Only 2% of those who currently use SD-WAN intend to decrease their use of the technology, and none of those respondents characterized their reductions as significant reductions.
Overall, there are a number of things to keep in mind when planning your SD-WAN strategy:
- If you’re doing UCaaS or CCaaS, Office 365, salesforce, AWS, Azure, Google, or advanced cybersecurity, SD-WAN may, in effect, be a necessary network upgrade.
- Bear in mind that some estimates for cost reduction associated with SD-WAN may be overstated. However, the fundamental reason to explore SD-WAN is around network performance and the latency-sensitive applications that are enabled by it.
- SD-WAN will not immediately displace MPLS across the broad market. But the continued use of MPLS should not delay trialing or even implementing SD-WAN along with it.
- Many carriers are adopting SD-WAN, recognizing the market direction, and acknowledging their own need to evolve.
- Firewalls and routers will potentially be displaced by multi-function SD-WAN boxes, meaning that your current infrastructure mix is likely to change over the course of time.
Key Questions in Deciding What’s Right for Your Company:
- How do you expect your security posture to change with SD-WAN?
- What are your current throughput requirements?
- What are your most critical applications, and where are they hosted?
- Are you considering hosting SD-WAN appliances in the cloud, and/or connecting via private circuits?
- To what extent is your technical team familiar with SD-WAN, and what level of assistance are they likely to require?
For more information on SD-WAN, on the applications supported by SD-WAN, or on any other technology issue, please consult your Trusted Advisor. In addition, please download our AVANT 6-12 Report on SD-WAN at www.goavant.net/sdwan-report.