Network as a Service (NaaS) is the future trend

Network as a Service (NaaS) refers to the ability for customers to access third-party network transport services over the Internet and pay for them in a subscription-based model. NaaS enables enterprises to outsource network functions at Layers 4-7, such as Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) and Application Delivery Controller (ADC), as well as Layers 1-3, including switches and routers.

The full adoption of NaaS is still in its early stages, as most enterprise network functions require physical hardware to transmit data to endpoints, data centers, or the Internet. This is a challenge for NaaS delivered as a service. Layer 4-7 functions are already available in a cloud delivery model.

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Over the next five-plus years, IT teams will increasingly adopt NaaS as vendors offer hybrid products that include software, cloud intelligence and the option to manage on-premises hardware.

These services will be subscription-based, pay-as-you-go, making the network more of an operating cost than a capital cost. They will offer centralized management, with the ability to easily add and remove network and security features.

These services will enable enterprises to outsource network operations to vendors, which may include vendors and their partners with service level agreements (SLAs) to determine guarantees of uptime and problem resolution.

Currently, NaaS is best suited for enterprises with a lean IT philosophy and a need to provide network support for home and branch offices. Available options offer overlay network services that can be enabled and delivered in the cloud, with little or no management of local hardware required. These include:

• Wi-Fi Control
• SD-WAN
• Secure office network and remote access
• ADCs
• Security, including firewalls, DDOS protection, and network security gateways
• Management, Orchestration and Network Automation (MANO)
• Multi-cloud network access and control

NaaS has many of the same benefits as other as-a-service offerings, including flexibility. NaaS enables the rapid provisioning of new sites and services, and has the elasticity to scale up and down as demand changes. It also works well for quickly adding and removing network services.

As with software-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service, NaaS’s underlying software is likely to be regularly updated to the latest and most secure versions, and, because it is cloud-optimized, its management is driven by AI to provide uptime guarantees and help resolve issues.

NaaS can shift significant capital expenditures to operating costs, allowing outsourcing of some or all resources to network for specific locations or user categories, such as those working from home.

And enterprise NaaS is not without its challenges.

For medium to large enterprises with significant investments in existing network security infrastructure for remote, branch, campus and data center networks, migrating to NaaS will be difficult and time-consuming, and multi-vendor environments will further complicate the issue.

Because NaaS is enabled by fast, low-latency Internet services, any disruption to WAN connectivity could severely degrade or disrupt an enterprise's network operations. Because the service is relatively new, NaaS pricing is still uncertain, so business leaders may find that annual operating costs may be higher than they budgeted.

And they will want to address a number of important issues, including service-level agreements. These should address what happens when the network goes down or degrades, and how quickly full service can be restored. Compensation for these problems should include lost revenue, poor customer service and lost employee productivity.

Before purchasing NaaS, enterprise customers should determine how easy it is to customize the product to their individual needs and how easy it is to adapt the service as their needs change.

Because they have outsourced part of their network, NaaS customers need to consider what they will do when their contracts expire. These organizations will not own the network in the traditional sense, so if they want to switch to a different provider, the process of switching can be complicated, as can contract negotiations.

NaaS may be ideal for employees who have recently moved to working from home or for new branch offices, but it is not for everyone. Migrating a large enterprise campus or data center network to NaaS will be very challenging. NaaS vendors are unlikely to support multi-vendor networks, which will bring the possibility of vendor lock-in to enterprises that want to go all in.

Adopting NaaS will require a shift from the current enterprise model, in which highly trained in-house network engineers operate all the complex network hardware. While most enterprises will continue to run complex physical networks on-premises, they will add cloud-based intelligence, including MANO and security.

In addition to the impact of NaaS on enterprise networks, it will also have a significant impact on the structure of the networking industry, including the channel partners who sell hardware, software and services. Vendors have a lot of work to do to educate these partners and get them to buy their NaaS products. They must answer how the channel can continue to provide value-added services and how difficult it will be to customize NaaS products.

Widespread adoption of enterprise NaaS will occur slowly over the next 5 to 10 years, with small branch offices being the best fit for adoption now. NaaS offerings will also be attractive to remote networks, home and mobile workers who need secure, reliable application performance, and enterprise networks that require high-speed mobile traffic in the field will be more difficult to provide as a service.