SD-WAN is about to dominate edge networks

Network transmission is like playing a team battle in King of Glory. Every link cannot be missed, and the edge network, which is the "last mile" connecting the entire network, cannot be ignored. For many enterprises, in order to make network connections efficient and affordable, they have turned from expensive enterprise dedicated lines to SD-WAN (Software Defined Wide Area Network) solutions, making it appear that it will dominate the edge network.

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Weaknesses of Traditional MPLS Private Lines

It should be said that traditional MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) has dominated the enterprise private line market for more than a decade. However, with the trend of cloud computing, mobile applications and globalization, the disadvantages of MPLS private lines have long been exposed. The first is that MPLS and other forms of private line network construction are no longer suitable for current cloud computing, SaaS and mobile applications.

For example, if you want to launch a new analytical application based on a dedicated line and configure the WAN infrastructure to make the application accessible to all users in the enterprise, the network administrator not only needs to apply the software update to the physical devices and business systems, but also needs to configure all routers and network devices and test the application at the same time, which is a cumbersome process. After that, the network policy must be upgraded and all nodes must be coordinated to support the stable operation of all business applications.

In addition, MPLS and other enterprise dedicated line solutions are generally expensive. For medium and large international enterprises, the expenditure on MPLS often exceeds one million. For many small and micro enterprises, it is also a cost factor that they have to bear, becoming an important constraint on growth.

Moving towards SD-WAN

Therefore, when SD-WAN appeared, enterprises and service providers found that the workload in establishing and operating branch offices, and updating or introducing new applications was significantly reduced. Through SD-WAN, the control interface becomes a centralized platform, and the network manager can control communication services, applications and terminal branches by changing the interface.

With the development of SD-WAN, network managers can also use cloud-like services to provide centralized control and seamlessly manage all WAN branches. By simplifying network policy configuration and management, SD-WAN can effectively improve flexibility. In addition, SD-WAN can also intelligently use multiple paths to enhance transmission performance, while reducing IT operating costs by replacing expensive MPLS connections.

Not only that, SD-WAN also helps prioritize data traffic of business applications, thereby improving the utilization of business processes, and can improve security by implementing network firewall policies across all branches and specific paths. As a result, many companies have begun to actively move towards SD-WAN.

SD-WAN at the Edge

Today, the accelerated expansion of the Internet of Things and the rise of 5G have also promoted the implementation of SD-WAN in edge networks. With the maturity of the above two vertical fields, SD-WAN can reduce IoT latency and improve application security through 5G networks and end-to-end data encryption.

And SD-WAN can also be used for 5G network slicing capabilities, such as dividing the same network into virtual networks for different types of use cases and devices.

SD-WAN platforms will innovate further through integration with security products and services. Network appliances used for security analytics will be replaced by virtual network functions (VNFs), which can be easily introduced into SD-WAN networks. In addition, SD-WAN platforms will be enhanced with analytics capabilities to better monitor traffic.

Market to grow to $2.2 billion next year

According to a survey conducted by research company Futuriom on more than 300 end users and enterprise buyers, SD-WAN is widely used in edge networks. It predicts that the SD-WAN platform market will reach US$2.2 billion by 2020, US$2.75 billion in 2021, and US$2.5 billion in 2022.

In fact, in the first half of 2019, the SD-WAN market continued to improve. It can be said that this is related to those companies that are eager to access cloud applications more quickly, and SD-WAN has great potential to become an edge network platform. Of course, other driving forces for SD-WAN also come from the support of cloud services and the desire for cloud security.

Conclusion

It can be seen that SD-WAN technology is convenient and has a large market space. Enterprises want to save costs through it. I believe that an era dominated by SD-WAN at the edge network is not far away.