Description

Software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) is a software approach to manage and control underlying enterprise network technologies that can include direct internet, wireless, broadband, Ethernet, and multiprotocol label switching; to realize the benefits of SD-WAN, a mix of underlay technologies is necessary.

SD-WAN is now often sold as part of a secure access secure edge SASE bundle, as nearly all vendors want to manage networks and network security across the LAN, WAN, cloud, SaaS, and on-prem data center. The focus is on end-to-end management of the digital infrastructure that sits between the end users and the application stack. Frost & Sullivan sees the service provider community focusing on multicloud-networking (MCN) and zero trust network access (ZTNA) as the most compelling offers, with single-vendor and best-of-breed solutions both popular.

This Frost Radar™ is an update from 2021 and 2022. Frost & Sullivan interviewed vendors in late 2023 and early 2024 and selected eight managed SD-WAN providers in North America to benchmark for 2024. The portfolios of the major providers are not adding vendor choices because of the maturity of the market and M&A activity (HPE acquired Juniper; Broadcom bought VMware; and Cisco purchased Splunk, which is not a direct SD-WAN play but will help with intelligence and reporting of much of Cisco’s product line). The providers are now in a wait-and-see partner approach to evaluate how these acquisitions translate into enhancements in the portfolio. While the vendor choices did not expand, the number of managed sites is growing at a double-digit rate for most providers. Frost & Sullivan has noticed excitement about SD-WAN plus ZTNA and managed Wi-Fi/LAN services for providers’ “land and expand” strategies. Network-as-a-Service is top of mind, with providers packaging direct internet access, SD-WAN, SASE, and MCN into such offerings.

Frost & Sullivan analyzes numerous companies in an industry. Those selected for further analysis based on their leadership or other distinctions are benchmarked across 10 Growth and Innovation criteria to reveal their position on the Frost Radar™. The publication presents competitive profiles of each company on the Frost Radar™ considering their strengths and the opportunities that best fit those strengths.