IT teams abandon DIY SD-WAN for managed hybrid models

When software-defined WAN first emerged, demand for the technology came primarily from two sources: IT organizations that wanted to design and build their own SD-WAN deployments, and other organizations that wanted to consume it as a managed service.

According to a survey of 303 WAN professionals, the latest research on WAN transformation released by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) shows that IT organizations have shifted their focus to managed SD-WAN services. Only 12% of enterprises prefer DIY SD-WAN, while 62% prefer managed products.

SD-WAN complexity is a key issue

Why are IT organizations moving away from DIY SD-WAN? I think the problem is complexity. In the early days of SD-WAN, complexity was an issue no matter which way an enterprise took it, so enterprises could hardly see the difference between DIY and managed SD-WAN.

On the DIY side, IT organizations find themselves working with a new technology layer that introduces site-to-site tunnels on top of the existing WAN. In addition to these tunnels, they must also figure out whether to keep existing routers in place and how to ensure those routers are compatible with SD-WAN technology.

Next, they must configure the new quality of service settings provided by the SD-WAN service. Soon thereafter, they will also need to integrate their network security architecture with the SD-WAN. The work on this front just keeps on coming.

One might think that managed products would take care of this complexity, but that’s not necessarily the case.

From 2016 to 2018, I spoke with multiple network service providers, from MPLS operators to cable companies, and I found that it was impossible to build an SD-WAN managed service that eliminated complexity. Many early SD-WAN products were immature and in some cases still included complex legacy technologies.

Vendors worked hard to “productize” these SD-WAN services into managed services that could be easily deployed in different customer environments, but they found that they had to start from scratch for each customer, which made everyone impatient.

This problem is exacerbated by large enterprises with special requirements. They have special requirements around routing compatibility and high-availability architectures that are difficult for service providers to achieve with SD-WAN technology designed to be used as a simple overlay. The result is a lot of dissatisfied customers and failed SD-WAN products.

Managed SD-WAN reduces complexity

SD-WAN technology has matured over the past few years, and so have managed SD-WAN service providers. As they gain experience, managed service providers and network service providers have established best practices, making it easier for them to abstract away complexity and make their offerings more "productized." In addition, most of them have established partnerships with multiple SD-WAN providers, which enables them to meet a wider range of customer needs.

However, complexity remains an issue with DIY SD-WAN. The technology may be mature, but the amount of work required to get an SD-WAN up and running is still significant.

This is partly due to architecture and topology. For example, 56% of enterprises deploying SD-WAN said they plan to use SD-WAN to build a fully meshed network with any-to-any connectivity between nearly every site and between any public and private cloud. This can be a daunting task for an enterprise's network engineering team. They will have to build countless tunnels within the SD-WAN overlay.

On the other hand, only 12% of enterprises intend to build a hub-and-spoke network using SD-WAN. These enterprises may prefer a DIY approach. They will deal with fewer tunnels and will most likely route cloud traffic through one or more data centers rather than building separate tunnels from each site to each cloud.

IT won't outsource SD-WAN operations

While most IT organizations prefer managed SD-WAN services, they do not want to outsource SD-WAN operations. The EMA survey asked IT organizations how they would like to manage operations such as change management, monitoring and troubleshooting, and only 16% wanted to outsource this work to a service provider.

On the other hand, only 17% want to keep SD-WAN operations completely in-house. 63% of enterprises want to establish a hybrid operations approach, with service providers and IT organizations sharing responsibilities. This hybrid model gives network teams more control without having to take on the responsibility of every operational task related to SD-WAN services.

For example, the internal network team may want to act as a Tier 1 response team and escalate complex issues to the service provider. Other businesses may want to take the opposite approach. This will depend on the skills and expertise of the team they have.

Regardless, the future of SD-WAN appears to be a market for managed service offerings with hybrid operating models. The emergence of secure access service edge (SASE), which combines SD-WAN, cloud-based security, and secure remote access into a single platform, may support this strategy.

Cloud-based security introduces a higher level of complexity because it combines a half-dozen or more security technologies into a single service. Then, add SD-WAN and secure remote access on top of that. Enterprises gain even more benefits by using SASE as a managed service.