Robust attention in SD-WAN platforms from carriers, vendors and enterprises is proving to be an early entry point and a source of financial return.
On this week’s “NFV/SDN Reality Check” we speak with Viptela on how it’s tackling the software-defined wide area network space and what’s behind the recent spike in interest across the market.
The SD-WAN market has been one of the most active over the past 12 months, with a number of large telecommunication operators announcing plans to deploy various solutions for their enterprise customers as well as vendors rolling out new platforms targeting both the carrier and enterprise space.
IHS Markit earlier this year released results from a WAN strategies survey of North American enterprises, which found the rush of lab trials in 2016 were turning into production deployments beginning this year. The survey found 42% of respondents started SD-WAN lab trials in 2016, and in 2017 many are moving into production trials and onto live production networks.
IDC last year forecast the SD-WAN space to reach $6 billion in technology and service sales by 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 90% over the next five years.
In terms of the vendor space, Viptela recently announced Japan-based NTTPC Communications would be using its platform to power the carrier’s Master’s One managed cloud network service. Viptela was also part of a SDN and NFV move last year by Verizon Communications, which included partners Cisco Systems, Juniper, Fortinet, Riverbed and Palo Alto.
On this week’s show, Ramesh Prabagaran, VP of product management at Viptela, offers up the company’s take on what’s behind the recent growth in interest of SD-WAN solutions, what markets are seeing benefits from those deployments, and challenges facing the industry in terms of ongoing support and development of SD-WAN platforms.
Thanks for watching this week’s show, and make sure to check out our next “NFV/SDN Reality Check” when we are scheduled to speak with Radisys on the connection between “5G” and the telecom industry’s central office re-architected as a data center efforts.
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