SD-WAN: New Enterprise Opportunity for Telcos, or a Threat to MPLS, SDN & NFV?

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Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WANs) have catapulted to prominence in the enterprise networking world in the last 12 months, driven by the growth of demand for access to cloud applications, and businesses’ desire to control WAN costs and complexity. SD-WAN may be a new “intermediary” layer in the network which has the potential to disrupt telcos’ enterprise aspirations, particularly given that it is dominated by vendors and specialist providers rather than telcos. SD-WAN may reduce operators’ MPLS and WAN services revenues and could potentially restrict future NFV/SDN opportunities. But SD-WAN also offers opportunities, where it is embraced – tactically – as part of operators’ enterprise portfolios.

Description

Format: PDF filePages: 21 pagesCharts: 04Author: STL research teamPublication Date: May 2016

Table of Contents

  • Executive Summary
  • Introduction
  • Background: Enterprise WANs
  • Shifting trends in WAN usage
  • The rise of SD-WAN
  • Overview – the holy grail of ‘good/fast/cheap’ in the WAN
  • SD-WAN technology and use-cases
  • SD-WAN vendors include start-ups and established enterprise market players
  • The role of service providers in SD-WAN
  • Bundling hosted voice/UCaaS and SD-WAN
  • Telcos Should take a Proactive Approach to SD-WAN
  • SD-WAN vs. SDN & NFV: Timing and Positioning
  • Future of SD-WAN and Recommendations
  • Recommendations

Table of Figures

  • Figure 1: SD-WAN architecture example
  • Figure 2: SD-WAN & NaaS may help telcos maintain revenues in enterprise WAN
  • Figure 3: SD-WAN may reduce telco opportunities for SDN/NFV/cloud services
  • Figure 4: Different paths for SD-WAN service offer provision & procurement

Technologies and industry terms referenced include: applications, Business Model, Cloud, enterprise, MPLS, Networking, nfv, SD-WAN, SDN, Telco 2.0, UCaaS, Virtualisation