Will SD-WAN Become the Universal Enterprise WAN Connection?


Some 93 percent of surveyed executives believe enterprises will have adopted software-defined wide area networks by the end of 2019.

That is a typical, and possibly too-optimistic forecast, in terms of revenue expectations. Since SD-WAN primarily is viewed as a branch office solution, and since current revenue might be less than $1 billion annually, on a global level. That is a very-small market, by tier-one service provider standards.

But there is another way to look at what we now call “software defined wide area networks.” And that is to envision the future enterprise wide area network being built nearly exclusively on virtual private networks that tunnel through the public network.

Source: Nokia Bell Labs

source: Nokia Bell Labs

In that scenario, virtual private networks become the basic way all enterprise WAN connections are built--to headquarters or branch locations. That becomes even more central if, as many believe, future networks will be highly virtualized and therefore federated.

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