In a global SD-WAN market study released by Cato Networks in May last year, about 20% of more than 350 professionals surveyed around the globe said they are planning to deploy SD-WAN in the next 12 months. Roughly half of them were looking at either using a global service provider or a managed service provider to help them deploy SD-WAN as part of their digital transformation.
Today, more than twelve months on, we are already seeing the essence of those responses being put into practice. Gartner predicts that 30% of enterprises will have deployed SD-WAN technology in their branches globally by the end of 2019 while IHS Markit found that 74% of firms surveyed had SD-WAN lab trials in 2017, and many of them plan to move into production this year.
SD-WAN is a powerful tool full of potential for enterprises that are committed to implementing it properly. Not only does it direct traffic over multiple links in an active/active model it also duplicates packets for latency-sensitive applications for a better user experience. Intelligent packet-based path selection recognises each application and directs it according to policies. Pair this with bi-directional monitoring and you have faster fail over from one link to another.
So, what do I mean by ‘implementing it properly’? We’ve spoken about four key questions SD-WAN can help you answer to practically demonstrate exactly what this market-leading technology can do for your enterprise. But deploying SD-WAN requires extensive specialised resources and expertise – a challenge that not all enterprises are willing (or able) to take on.