The software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) market is embarking on an exciting second generation that moves beyond the initial deployments and proofs of concept of SD-WAN technology and toward full-scale, enterprisewide adoption of SD-WAN platforms.

This new wave of SD-WAN is driven by enterprises gaining significant value from initial deployments of SD-WAN and now looking to expand those out enterprisewide. As organisations do so, they have emphasised three key, interwoven requirements of an SD-WAN platform that make it enterprise grade. These requirements, which reflect the current environment of how enterprise networks are architected and the business priorities of organisations, are as follows: integrated security being built directly into the SD-WAN platform; multicloud connectivity being a foundational component of the SD-WAN technology; and the ability of an SD-WAN platform to guarantee high levels of application reliability, no matter where that application is hosted.