International Data Corporation (IDC) has published two new research reports on the fast-growing Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) infrastructure market. This important segment of the enterprise networking market will grow at a 30.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2018 to 2023 to reach $5.25 billion, according to IDC’s SD-WAN Infrastructure Forecast. The IDC Market Shares report includes 2017 and 2018 revenues by vendor for SD-WAN infrastructure.
“SD-WAN continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments of the network infrastructure market, driven by a variety of factors. First, traditional enterprise WANs are increasingly not meeting the needs of today’s modern digital businesses, especially as it relates to supporting SaaS apps and multi- and hybrid-cloud usage. Second, enterprises are interested in easier management of multiple connection types across their WAN to improve application performance and end-user experience,” said†Rohit Mehra, vice president,†Network Infrastructure. “Combined with the rapid embrace of SD-WAN by leading communications service providers globally, these trends continue to drive deployments of SD-WAN, providing enterprises with dynamic management of hybrid WAN connections and the ability to guarantee high levels of quality of service on a per-application basis.”
The SD-WAN infrastructure market continues to be highly competitive with sales increasing 64.9% in 2018 to $1.37 billion. Incumbent networking vendors have leveraged their technological strengths and installed bases in routing and WAN optimization sales to lead the market, while numerous start-ups remain active. IDC finds that Cisco holds the largest share of the SD-WAN infrastructure market, fueled by its extensive routing portfolio that is used in SD-WAN deployments, as well as its Meraki portfolio and its SD-WAN management platform powered by technology it acquired from Viptela in August 2017. VMware, with its SD-WAN service powered by VeloCloud (which VMware acquired in December 2017), holds the second-largest market share in the SD-WAN infrastructure market, followed by Silver Peak, Nokia-Nuage, and Riverbed.
IDC’s Market Share and Market Forecast reports focus specifically on the SD-WAN infrastructure market, which includes both hardware and software used in SD-WAN deployments. IDC defines SD-WAN as a dynamic, policy-enabled hybrid WAN that uses at least two or more connection methods (such as MPLS, broadband internet, 3G/4G, etc.) and includes a centralized application-based policy controller that provides intelligent path selection, along with an optional forwarder for routing capability. The SD-WAN infrastructure Market Share and Forecast reports do not include managed services related to SD-WAN, such as setup or operational support, nor do they include connectivity costs.
The IDC SD-WAN Infrastructure Forecast provides an outlook for this market across major regions for the period extending to 2023, including historical numbers through 2017 and forecast numbers from 2019 to 2023. It also provides regional geographic segmentation of the SD-WAN infrastructure market, including market sizes and CAGRs for each major region (North America, EMEA, APJ, Latin America).
