One handy guide—detailing 22 SD-WAN vendors and 81 managed SD-WAN providers.
SD-WAN is growing, and so is the need to understand how it's sold by a multitude of network equipment vendors and managed service providers.
This guide outlines the evolving vendor landscape so that you can understand the full scope of SD-WAN services offered by vendors, relevant security features, and emerging partnerships between companies developing these technologies.
From TeleGeography’s Cloud and WAN Research Service, we’ve extracted vendor profiles to deliver this information at a glance, along with SD-WAN trends.
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What is SD-WAN?
SD-WAN Vendors
SD-WAN vendors generally fall into one of two categories.
1) Large network equipment vendors that have long designed and provided network equipment. Many WAN service companies that offer a number of enterprise solutions—such as WAN optimization and WAN acceleration—have also come out with SD-WAN solutions.
2) SD-WAN startups also make up a large portion of the market. Most SD-WAN vendors will sell directly to enterprises, but several indicated they sell exclusively through their channel partners or to carriers, who then provide a managed SD-WAN service to enterprise customers.
Managed Network Providers
A number of traditional network service providers have also entered the SD-WAN marketplace, offering service through partnerships with SD-WAN vendors rather than via their own proprietary hardware. This type of service is appealing to enterprise customers who may already be familiar with a carrier’s brand, employ them for other connectivity services, or who are looking for a truly managed end-to-end solution.
The core benefits associated with SD-WAN technology are consistent across provider offerings:
- Reduced network cost
- Decreased network complexity
- Ease of upgrades or policy changes
- Increased flexibility and network performance.
Aside from absolute price, which can be a significant determinant in vendor selection, features like deployment model, scalability, and service package can help corporate networks teams decide which SD-WAN provider best meets their network requirements.