Customers are ready for the SD-WAN pitch

There has been a lot of hype around the SD-WAN market with vendors encouraging resellers to get involved with the technology to ensure they are on-board as adoption levels start to take-off.

Those looking for more than just advice from vendors or anecdotal tales of customer interest might be more convinced by the latest analysis of the market from IDC.

The analyst house is expecting impressive growth in the SD-WAN infrastructure market with the enterprise segment of the networking market growing at a 30.8% compound annual growth rate between 2018 and 2023 to hit revenues of $5.25bn.

"SD-WAN continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments of the network infrastructure market," said Rohit Mehra, vice president, Network Infrastructure at IDC.

He said that there were a number of factors driving the growth, including traditional WANs failing to meet the needs of digital businesses, "especially as it relates to supporting SaaS apps and multi- and hybrid-cloud usage".

"Enterprises are interested in easier management of multiple connection types across their WAN to improve application performance and end-user experience," he added was another factor.

One of the challenges for both resellers and customers is identifying who to partner with and buy with the market remaining very crowded.

Mehra noted that the market contained both established networking players, which had added SD-WAN to their portfolio, as well as numerous start-ups that were trying to disrupt the market.

In terms of market share IDC has Cisco at the top with VMware next and then Silver Peak, Nokia-Nuage and Riverbed.

Earlier this week, Masergy released its SD-WAN Market Trends Report and found that the technology was no longer just 'on the radar; and adoption rates had increased from 35% to 54% in the last two years.

In a blog post Masergy's vp, innovation Ray Watson said that customers were ready and resellers needed to go and make a good case for SD-WAN.

"The new research indicates a sign of SD-WAN readiness and maturity both with the technology and the market. As adoption rises, IT professionals have a better understanding of the benefits SD-WAN delivers, how it fits in their organization, and the best use cases for it. Investors have gained confidence over the past two years, which is a sign that the SD-WAN pitch is more likely to be well received," he stated.