IDC predicts the global software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) is set for strong growth, with 2020 revenues exceeding $6 billion with a 90% CAGR over the 2015-2020 forecast period.
SD-WAN are an evolution on hybrid WAN architectures adding a centralised application-based policy controller, analytics for application and network visibility, a software layer to abstract underlying networks and an optional SD-WAN forwarder to provide intelligent path selection across WAN links.
The analyst points a number of SD-WAN benefits, including cost-effective business application delivery, the meeting of the operational requirements of branch/remote sites, optimised SaaS and cloud services such as UC&C, and improved branch IT efficiency through automation.
"As public and private cloud use continues to grow, WAN performance becomes critical to latency-sensitive and mission-critical workloads and inter-datacenter business continuity," IDC says. "Accordingly, as enterprises plan and implement comprehensive cloud strategies, WAN architectures need to be considered alongside, and in conjunction with, datacenter infrastructure. Moreover, as enterprises move business processes to the cloud, there is a greater need to fully integrate cloud-sourced services into WAN environments to ensure workload/application performance, availability, and security."
