The 2025 SD-WAN market is a dynamic landscape with a multitude of vendors offering diverse solutions. To successfully navigate this market and select the optimal solution for your organization, a basic understanding of what to look for in the key players and their offerings is helpful.
Over the years I have put together a solid stable of qualified SD-WAN providers, with differing capabilities and levels of service, but all are trusted and I put business with them on a regular basis. I have solid relationships within all of these organizations. I can help as your The Telecom Broker to settle on the best provider for your needs. This section will give us some common ground to discuss if you want my help, or are shopping on your own.
Increasingly sophisticated attacks are mandating security needs for many enterprises such that requirements for bullet-proof firewalls and managed detection and response requires expanding the security perimeter of the network to trusting a single provider for the whole enchilada. Obviously, vendor selection then becomes paramount, not just now, but going forward. Single provider = no finger pointing when there is an issue.
Biggest is not always best. There are a handful of great national vendors who do a great job, with white glove service and at affordable price points. Just because you haven’t heard of some vendors simply means they don’t advertise publicly and are satisfied doing a great job for the customers who do find them. Also, with the advent of "bring your own bandwidth" (BYOB) in SD-WAN, we can buy the most cost effective circuits, and let a managed SD-WAN vendor manage all the endpoints and security aspects if desired.
1. Generalized Vendor Profiles:
Gaining insights into leading SD-WAN vendors is not easy. Each vendor has its own strengths, weaknesses, target markets, and product differentiators. As with many complex services, it’s hard to know who’s good and who’s not so good, unless you have a solid reference, or as in my case, years in the business buying and turning up Wide Area Networks on behalf of corporate customers. Here are some basic profiles of key vendors, including:
- Industry giants: Cisco, VMware, Fortinet, and HPE Aruba, who bring extensive experience and vast resources to the table.
- Niche players: Companies like Silver Peak (now part of Aruba), Versa Networks, and Cato Networks who focus on specific market segments or offer unique technological advantages.
- Cloud providers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), who offer SD-WAN as part of their broader cloud networking solutions.
When researching vendors, we want information on each vendor's:
- Background and market share: Understand their history, expertise, and position in the market. As a Telecom Broker, I work for my clients, not the vendor. So the indirect sales channel I work in is a whole different customer experience than dealing with a direct sales rep who is here to today and gone tomorrow.
- Product portfolio: Explore their SD-WAN solutions, features, and functionalities, especially a vendors portfolio of managed security services, this will become increasingly important as the basic IT department is not going to have the budget to do all this in-house.
- Target audience: Identify the types of organizations and industries they cater to. If a particular vendor has a couple of verticals they do well in, there is no reason not to exploit this expertise.
- Strengths and weaknesses: Evaluate their competitive advantages and limitations. One of the main issues I've found here over the years is responsiveness. I refuse to deal with mega telcos who at the end of the day seem to think they are doing us a favor by giving the network to them. I want a clean escalation path, with people I'm super comfortable with, and probably have met a number of times in person over the years. Your SD-WAN network may be in place for a decade or longer. It pays to make sure the vendors staff are well trained, of highest integrity and friendly as well as competent.
- Pricing models: Gain insights into their subscription plans and licensing options. By dealing with a broker like me, this is easy, I do the work. If you're doing it on your own, a simple spreadsheet with your service priorities can be used as a checklist when you gather vendor information before asking for proposals.
By analyzing the info above, and these generic profiles below, you might create a shortlist of vendor capabilities to ask about when you talk to me or draft your RFP or other purchasing process. It’s important your final selection is not just competitively priced but aligns with your organization's specific needs and requirements.
2. Technology Comparisons:
SD-WAN vendors employ various technologies and architectures to deliver their solutions. This section provides a comparative analysis of these technologies, enabling you to understand the basics and make better informed decisions. This includes:
- Underlying technologies: Evaluate the different approaches to SD-WAN, such as:
- Traditional router-based: Leveraging existing network infrastructure with software overlays.
- Virtualized network functions (VNFs): Deploying SD-WAN functionalities as virtual machines.
- Cloud-native: Built entirely on cloud infrastructure for scalability and flexibility.
- Deployment models: Understand the different deployment options, including:
- On-premises: Deploying SD-WAN appliances at branch locations.
- Cloud-managed: Centralized management from a cloud platform.
- Hybrid: Combining on-premises and cloud-managed components.
- Security features: Compare the security capabilities offered by different vendors, such as:
- Firewall integration: Protection against network threats, at each node, or is there a network-based managed security option?
- Intrusion detection and prevention: Proactive security monitoring. What is the breadth of offerings from the vendor, might they be able to “handle it all” on a fully managed basis?
- Encryption: Secure communication between sites. All vendors provide encryption or traffic, might there be an additional advantage to provisioning MPLS dedicated circuits in lieu of DIA for larger nodes?
- Performance optimization: Analyze how different vendors optimize network performance, including:
- Traffic shaping and prioritization: Prioritizing critical applications. How does it work? Who can access the dashboard to view? To make changes? If only the provider can make changes, what it the process? How long does it take?
- WAN optimization techniques: Improving bandwidth utilization. Here we are also talking about link remediation, the ability of the solution to pass large amounts of traffic simultaneously across a set of circuits. Does a failed circuit result in a break in the bit-stream? Or do we have true sub second fail-over as in some offerings whereby a VoIP call will not drop even with the loss of a circuit?
- Application-aware routing: Directing traffic based on application requirements. What are the options? How granular can this be? What are your main apps that will need consideration? How do these needs fit with the mix of circuit types or the node profiles we will build for your organization?
By understanding the technological differences between vendors, you can choose a solution that best fits your organization's network infrastructure, performance requirements, and security needs. If in doubt, there is no shame in opting for a great provider that has a broad skill set in fully managed security options, this is what most of my SD-WAN customers are doing.
3. Analyst Reports:
Industry analyst reports provide valuable insights into market trends, vendor positioning, and emerging technologies. This section offers summaries of key analyst reports from reputable firms like Gartner, Forrester, and IDC. These reports will help you:
- Stay informed about market dynamics: Understand the latest trends, growth drivers, and challenges in the SD-WAN market.
- Evaluate vendor rankings: See how different vendors are positioned in the market based on their strengths and weaknesses.
- Identify emerging technologies: Gain insights into future developments and innovations in the SD-WAN space.
- Make informed decisions: Leverage analyst recommendations and insights to choose the right SD-WAN solution for your organization.
By accessing and analyzing these reports, you can gain a broader perspective on the SD-WAN market and make well-informed decisions that align with your long-term business objectives.
In conclusion, navigating the SD-WAN market requires a comprehensive understanding of the key players, their current and near future technologies, and the overall market landscape. Hopefully this section has provided the necessary basic resources and information to empower you in making informed decisions and selecting the optimal SD-WAN solution for your organization's unique needs.