These five points cannot be ignored when selecting enterprise SD-WAN!

As the main theme of today's IT industry, cloud computing is one of the most important driving factors of SD-WAN.

The mission of WAN in the cloud era has expanded from "network access" to "cloud access". It is reported that 85% of applications will run on the cloud in the future, and hybrid cloud will be the preferred application deployment method for enterprises in the future.

When enterprises adopt SaaS, IaaS, or migrate workloads (such as SAP) to the public cloud, the traffic pattern of applications will be fundamentally changed, which requires a good Internet connection from the enterprise branch to the cloud service to avoid unnecessary delays and congestion caused by traffic backhauled to the data center. SD-WAN plays an important role in this, enabling the interconnection between various enterprise sites and the cloud migration of enterprise IT.

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An important aspect for enterprises to improve their competitiveness is to reduce capital expenditures (Capex) and operating costs (Opex), and an important means of reducing costs and increasing efficiency is to improve management efficiency.

SD-WAN enables enterprises to better control budgets, flexibly schedule applications based on their critical levels, provide end-to-end visibility of the WAN, improve efficiency, intelligent operation and maintenance, and reduce IT costs.

SD-WAN adopts a cloud delivery model, which enables the WAN to work well with cloud resources. Enterprises can also conveniently subscribe to WAN services on demand. At the branch end, SD-WAN can be delivered through software, which can help customers quickly extend the original physical branch to a virtual branch in any corner of the public cloud. It can be seen that SD-WAN is of great value to enterprise IT.

MPLS will coexist with SD-WAN for a long time

As a rigid demand of enterprises in the multi-cloud era, SD-WAN is often compared with MPLS. Many people believe that "SD-WAN will eventually replace MPLS". In fact, it is not the case. The two have their own advantages and disadvantages. The former is intelligent, flexible, economical, and cloud-native, while the latter has exclusive resources and guaranteed performance, which can complement each other. For a long period of time, SD-WAN will coexist with MPLS.

In the long run, with the continuous evolution of network technology, the emergence of 5G and SR-V6 will inevitably rewrite the landscape of operators' access and bearer sides. SD-WAN itself is also constantly evolving and integrating with these new technologies. Software-defined has become the trend of the future. Traditional MPLS dedicated lines, as the previous generation of VPN networking technology, will inevitably gradually withdraw from the stage of history.

5G+SD-WAN helps enterprises achieve digital transformation

In the process of cloud transformation, enterprises need a clear and continuous evolution path. The cloud strategy of enterprises needs to consider not only the cloud, but also whether the wide area network has the ability to evolve smoothly when a series of new applications based on technologies such as 5G and AI emerge. 5G will promote the realization of SD-WAN, connections from the edge of the network to anywhere, and the development of more application scenarios.

Li Gang, senior technical director of VMware Greater China, said, "5G has indeed brought us huge room for imagination. From the perspective of enterprise networking alone, 5G has brought a new access method - enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), which allows enterprises to obtain large bandwidth access and good mobility without strictly relying on MPLS private lines."

Since 5G's massive machine-type communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (uRLLC) will give rise to more applications, the edge of enterprises' wide area networks will be further stretched in the future, and some network edges will even be unmanned. In this case, the automated management of large-scale wide area networks must be considered first.

Secondly, the application differentiation and connection performance between various clouds and between clouds and users are also aspects to be considered. SD-WAN is naturally equipped with this capability and can efficiently realize the management of large-scale wide area networks, application identification and application QoS guarantee. Li Gang believes that "5G will be a boon to SD-WAN."

How should enterprises choose SD-WAN?

As the SD-WAN trend grows, a large number of SD-WAN companies have emerged in the market, whether they are old equipment manufacturers or new business upstarts. When faced with so many SD-WAN vendors, how should enterprise users choose a solution that suits them? We need to pay attention to the following aspects:

First, enterprise users are afraid of being guinea pigs, so how mature is the product? How is the product ranked in the quadrant of a third-party authoritative organization? Can its technology and products meet the various scenarios and needs of industry customers? Has it been deployed on a large scale? Has it withstood the test of the market?

Second, enterprise users are afraid that they can’t find anyone after sales, so what about the global service delivery capabilities of this product? This includes global logistics, global 24x7 technical support, partner ecosystem, etc.

Third, enterprise users are afraid that what they buy today will be outdated tomorrow. So is the ecosystem of this product healthy? Does its technological evolution direction match the trend of the entire industry?

Fourth, enterprise users are concerned about the actual use effect, so how is the optimization effect on the performance of key applications in a multi-cloud environment? Such as video conferencing, VoIP, Office365, ERP, etc., because today, WAN connections are no longer limited to enterprise branches, and more scenarios will be various forms of clouds.

Fifth, does the use of SD-WAN reduce the burden on IT personnel, or increase the workload and complexity? How easy is it to use? Since SD-WAN is the product of the integration of multiple technologies, whether it can effectively shield the complexity of these technologies and truly simplify the business processes and operation and maintenance management of the wide area network has a crucial impact on Capex/Opex.

In general, when enterprises select SD-WAN, they need to focus on the five aspects of product maturity, service delivery capabilities, technology evolution direction, actual use effect, and ease of use. Li Gang said, "As the pioneer and leader of the SD-WAN industry, VMware has achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1, using innovative optimization technology - Dynamic Multi-Path Optimization (DMPO) and cloud delivery methods to help enterprises transform smoothly."

Final Thoughts

Although the domestic SD-WAN market started slightly later than the international market, the domestic SD-WAN industry is very active. Many white box manufacturers, SD-WAN start-ups, security vendors, cloud service providers, network equipment manufacturers, and operators are all involved in this field. Many organizations are promoting the coordinated development of the entire industry. For many start-ups, it is urgent to improve profitability as soon as possible to ensure sustainable development.

For many strong companies, investment in SD-WAN technology and market is the key to their future position. It is not ruled out that the domestic SD-WAN market will be restructured in the next few years, and some strong companies will gradually occupy the main market. As more and more users begin to adopt SD-WAN, the market will also usher in its explosive period!