Enterprise networking experts often disagree on many things. However, when it comes to SD-WAN technology it is difficult to ignore its obvious benefits. Don’t take our word for it, here’s what 9 leading industry experts have to say on the benefits of SD-WAN for enterprise networking:
Is SD-WAN the future of networking? Here is what the experts say…
Andrew Lerner @fast_lerner
Andrew is an analyst at Gartner specializing in emerging networking architecture technologies, and was an early predictor of the impact of SD-WAN. He recently wrote in a Gartner blog:
“While it doesn’t cure all the evils in wide-area networking, and isn’t a fit for all branch scenarios, it’s still pretty cool. SD-WAN represents a simplified and cost-effective way to WAN, and that is important because most enterprise hate their WANs.”
Erik Fritzler @FritzlerErik
Erik Fritzler is an industry-leading IT architect working for H&R Block. He also writes for Network World magazine and has some excellent articles including “A C-level view of SD-WAN”, where he discusses the tangible business benefits of SD-WAN solutions at length. In terms of efficiency of SD-WAN, Erik claims:
“In addition to business and architectural transformation, SD-WAN delivers hard cost savings. This technology can reduce both OPEX and CAPEX expenditures depending on the solution deployed .”
Ivan Pepelnjak @ioshints
Ivan Pepelnjak has been in the business of designing and implementing large-scale networks as well as teaching and writing books on the topic for almost three decades.
When it comes to SD-WAN, he concedes:
“There’s a huge business case that SD-WAN products are aiming to solve: replacing traditional MPLS/VPN networks with encrypted transport over public Internet….Internet access is often orders of magnitude cheaper than traditional circuits. Replacing MPLS/VPN circuits with IPsec-over-Internet (or something similar) can drastically reduce your WAN costs. Trust me – I’ve seen dozens of customers make the move and save money.”
Brandon Butler @BButlerNWW
Brandon is a senior editor for Network World. He writes a regular column focusing on advancements in the networking architecture industry.
In his article “What SDN is and where it’s going” he talks about the emergence of SD-WAN and the various areas that it impacts, including security, where he states that:
“SD-WANs can save on a customer’s capital expense of installing expensive customized WAN acceleration hardware by allowing them to run a software overlay on less-expensive commodity hardware.”
Steve Garson @WANExperts
If you are thinking about exploring the options of SD-WAN and are looking for a vendor-agnostic overview, Steve Garson at SD-WAN Experts is a good resource. He writes in a recent article “When SD-WAN is more than SD-WAN“ that:
“As the SD-WAN market has matured, one thing has become very clear: SD-WAN will not exist on its own. The technology is merging with other networking technologies, ultimately becoming a feature of a much larger bundle…Predominantly, we’re seeing security and SD-WANs merge.”
Ben Hendrick @IBMSecurity
Ben Hendrick has an executive role with IBM Security. He has recently written an intriguing post “Secure SD-WAN: The First Step Toward Zero Trust Security”. The post looks at the use of zero-trust models in providing security infrastructures. He states:
“One of the most obvious and pressing benefits of SD-WAN is improved network security.”
John Burke @Nemertes
John Burke is the CIO and Principal Research Analyst at Nemertes Research. In his article “A strong SD-WAN business case starts with evaluating your current WAN” he writes:
“Software-defined WAN is reshaping how we think about the wide area network — a change as profound as the advent of server virtualization, which completely transformed data centers over the last 10 years.”
Catch this webinar recorded by John Burke on building a SD-WAN business case.
Michael Vizard @mvizard
Michael Vizard is an IT journalist writing across a number of industry publications. In his article “SD-WAN Adoption Accelerates as Platforms Mature“ where he looks at the uptake of SD-WAN and the drivers behind this adoption including:
“Managing networks at that level of scale is also going to push many IT organizations to reevaluate their own internal capabilities, which is one reason managed SD-WAN services are becoming more prevalent.”
Roopa Honnachari @roopa_shree
Roopa Honnachari is an Industry Director for Business Communication Services & Cloud Computing at Frost & Sullivan. In her article “The meteoric rise of SD-WAN: what is driving market demand?“ she outlines a number of business benefits of using SD-WAN, this includes:
“SD-WAN puts the control back in their hands, while enabling the enterprise to use a combination of private and public networks. This results in a better total cost of ownership (TCO). Lower costs and the ability to ensure optimal application performance through greater control of branch sites remotely has attracted significant interest from enterprises, especially from verticals with distributed branch locations, such as retail, banking, financial services, manufacturing and logistics.”
Rohit Mehra @rmehraIDC
Rohit Mehra is the Vice President Network Infrastructure at analysts, IDC. Rohit writes in a post by IDC on the soaring SD-WAN market that:
“Traditional WANs were not architected for the cloud and are also poorly suited to the security requirements associated with distributed and cloud-based applications. And, while hybrid WAN emerged to meet some of these next-generation connectivity challenges, SD-WAN builds on hybrid WAN to offer a more complete solution.”
He has co-authored a short, but useful guide “Benefits of a Fully Featured SD-WAN”, which can help build a business case for the use of SD-WAN.
Dave Greenfield @netmagdave
Dave is an IT veteran with over 20 years as an award-winning journalist and independent technology consultant. Today, he serves as a secure networking evangelist for Cato Networks. When it comes to SD-WAN benefits he writes in his recent blog post:
“SD-WAN edge routers let organizations boost overall capacity available for production (no more wasteful “standby” capacity) and it automates application traffic routing based on real-time monitoring of changing conditions. Instead of crude command line interfaces that were error-prone and slowed deployments, SD-WAN leverages zero-touch provisioning, policies, and other technologies to automate once time-consuming, manual configuration”
As the legacy networking solutions such as MPLS can no longer meet the needs of modern enterprises, the demand for SD-WAN is rapidly growing. To keep up with the latest developments, make sure to follow the experts above!