This Gartner Market Trends report emphasizes the correlation between the increasing growth of software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) and internet in enterprise WAN, and competition in service management. “Network service providers must rethink their longtime settled go-to-market and service delivery practices to ensure success meeting new enterprise demands,” Gartner analysts say.

• SD-WAN is becoming the de facto option chosen by enterprises in WAN edge renewals in parallel to Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) steadily being displaced by internet for incremental WAN bandwidth.
• Network service providers are increasingly challenged by established and new competition in the overlay SD-WAN management as well as in the underlay WAN transport.
• The market remains hesitant to network function virtualization (NFV)-based WAN edge adoption as enterprises continue to perceive the technology as being immature, complex and not cost-effective.
• Enterprises need to rearchitect their network security for cloud, internet and SD-WAN which is creating opportunities for convergence of WAN edge and network security services.