Enabling a more holistic approach to SD-WAN adoption A guide

Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) has been all the rage for a number of years. We’ve all heard about the benefits Optimising transport cost with Internet connectivity instead of MPLS. Application visibility. Simplified network management.To be sure, they are real. According to Gartner, by the end of 2019,more than 50% of new managed WAN deployments incorporated SD-WAN and IDC expect that 80% of enterprises will define their SD-WAN strategy within the next 24 months.While most enterprises have been sounding the market, or even conducting pilots, fewer have made a radical transformation of their entire network.So why haven’t all enterprises jumped on the bandwagon? Here are three perspectives on the barriers to SD-WAN adoption.No network is stronger than its weakest link. While SD-WAN is a significant leap forward, it can’t deliver the promised results without a reliable, well-connected physical network. According to the Uptime Institute’s 2019 global survey, 31 percent of organizations cited network failure as the primary cause of their most recent data centre incident or outage. That’s why the network ‘underlay’ the combination of infrastructure and service still matters more than ever. In fact, more than 80% of Enterprises (according to Gartner) will use a hybrid WAN combining MPLS/Ethernet and the Internet in five years’ time.