Telecommunications companies have taken a strong interest in SDN. At the same time, more enterprise use cases for NFV have been emerging. When it comes to software-defined networking (SDN) vs. network functions virtualization (NFV), both are related and both use network abstraction. However, SDN separates and abstracts the control plane into software from the data plane, which remains in hardware, and NFV is a combination of separating wholesale network and security functions into specific software, then service chaining them. NFV: Not Just for Telcos When network function virtualization (NFV) first started making headlines about four years ago, the initial use…
A recent IDG report predicted that the nascent software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) industry, worth a mere $225 million last year, will experience a 90 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years to become a $6 billion industry by 2020. SNS Research revealed that by the end of 2020, service provider investments in network function virtualization (NFV), SD-WAN and software-defined networking (SDN) will total more than $18 Billion. The Growth Drivers Telcos are aggressively jumping on the NFV and SDN bandwagon, targeting deployments across a multitude of areas. SNS Research said that operators are driven by the…
If you’ve been reading IT trade publications lately, you may have seen a new networking sector called software-defined WAN (SD-WAN). SD-WAN provides several value propositions for the enterprise in the form of lower connectivity costs by adding broadband/Internet options to your MPLS WAN, improved application performance through “app-aware” routing, and reduced complexity and operational delays by centrally managing branch appliances with zero-touch provisioning. But it doesn’t take a hardened network manager (or IT purchasing department analyst) to conclude that while SD-WAN improves connectivity, key branch services like security and WAN optimization are not part of the solution. Hence branch architectures…
Subscribe to the Versa Blog
Gartner Research Report
Trial
ROI
Contact