Many still consider SD-WAN as an emerging technology in the enterprise IT space. However, SD-WAN has started to gain traction among IT leaders. Organizations world-wide that are gearing up or are mid-way through a ‘digital transformation’ drive need to take a more software-defined approach to their infrastructure. IT teams in these organizations are increasingly relying on automation to help them with the routine tasks to make IT more efficient. Analyst firm IDC believes that SD-WAN market will reach USD 8 billion by 2020, a CAGR of 70% per year growth over the next four years. While some believe that the…
Much has changed in the retail space since the electronic cash register came on the scene in the 1970s. What was once a manual process of locations counting their tills and sending the receipt information to the head office became a faster, easier and more precise endeavor, as the machines could transmit the sales information directly without the need for human interaction—besides pressing a few buttons, of course. Today, technology in retail touches the entire process, from inventory ordering and management to sales transactions and even customer satisfaction and retention. It could easily be argued that retailers today are more…
Companies looking to expand their WAN networks are rich in choices: They can stick with a traditional WAN or go with a hybrid or SD-WAN architecture. Given the costs and provisioning delays associated with traditional WANs, a growing number of companies are turning to hybrid or SD-WAN. It only makes sense: Because they facilitate the use of direct internet access (broadband) as an alternative method of branch connectivity. Hybrid and SD-WANs are much lower in cost than MPLS WANs. However, there are distinct differences between hybrid WAN and SD-WAN architectures that are worth noting, especially for companies looking for more…
In our last post, we talked about the benefits of network function virtualization (NFV) for managed service providers. Taking a step further, we’ll now examine how providers that deploy NFV can further benefit from this rapidly growing industry trend of evolving previously hardware-centric networks by leveraging security technologies into software-based services. A core element of NFV is the virtualized network function (VNF), which is a software-based or virtualized version of a specific function such as a next-generation firewall (NGFW). Employing VNFs goes far beyond just converting from point hardware to virtualized software instances such as an NGFW. VNFs, which are…
Gartner published its Market Guide for Software-Defined WAN in December 2015 where it defines the key operating requirements for the new SD-WAN market and discusses the first set of vendors in this nascent market. By meeting the listed operating requirements, Gartner recognized Versa Networks as a Representative Vendor of SD-WAN. Gartner’s SD-WAN definition requires that vendors meet four key requirements: “SD-WAN solutions provide a lightweight replacement for traditional WAN routers, and are agnostic to WAN transport technologies (that is, they support MPLS, Internet, Long Term Evolution [LTE], etc.).” “Based on business and/or application policies, SD-WAN solutions allow for load sharing…
Enterprise WAN and branch architectures really haven’t changed much in the last 20 years. Traffic patterns, though, have changed quite a bit with the advent of cloud apps like Office365 and Salesforce.com. Couple that with large amounts of branch traffic going to recreational sites. But today’s branch architectures are still designed for branch-to-data center or -HQ connectivity based on expensive MPLS connectivity or DIY over-the-top VPN technologies like DMVPN (which are complex to setup and manage). At the same time, broadband connectivity has significantly improved and its performance metrics are similar to MPLS. Compounding these WAN issues is the fact…
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