Cisco tops Vertical Systems Group’ first U.S. SD-WAN Technology LEADERBOARD, which ranks Technology Suppliers based on share of total Carrier Managed SD-WAN sites in the U.S. powered by their SD-WAN equipment. The following five Technology Suppliers have attained a position on this initial benchmark (in rank order based on site share): Cisco, VMware, Fortinet, Versa Networks, and HPE Aruba. Each of these Technology Suppliers has 5% or more of the total number of U.S. Carrier Managed SD-WAN customer sites installed and billable as of June 30, 2023. For this analysis a site is counted once per supplier, regardless of the amount of SD-WAN equipment installed at the customer location.
“Our new benchmark measures market presence across the technology suppliers empowering enterprise-grade SD-WAN solutions in the U.S. Carrier Managed segment. As migration to managed SD-WAN solutions accelerates, technology suppliers are actively enhancing their products to keep pace, while vying to integrate SASE and SSE capabilities,” states Rosemary Cochran, Principal of Vertical Systems Group.
These leading technology companies and others are the key suppliers of SD-WAN equipment deployed by the service providers ranked on Vertical Systems Group’s Mid-2023 U.S. Carrier Managed SD-WAN LEADERBOARD – AT&T, Comcast Business, Verizon, Hughes, Lumen, and Windstream – as well as to service providers cited in the Challenge and Market Player tiers.
SD-WAN Technology Research Highlights
- Vertical projects that the number of Carrier Managed SD-WAN sites in the U.S. will surpass one million by 2027. These sites are managed by a network operator, utilize an SDN architecture, enable dynamic optimization of site connectivity, and provide centralized network control with visibility end-to-end.
- For this analysis, SD-WAN solutions for Cisco include Meraki MX and Cisco SD-WAN. VMware offers SD-WAN by VeloCloud, and Fortinet offers FortiGate. Versa’s solution is Secure SD-WAN, and HPE Aruba offers EdgeConnect SD-WAN.
- Technology suppliers providing SD-WAN equipment to service providers may also supply SASE and SSE solutions. A SASE Service Framework (MEF 117) was finalized by MEF in October 2022. There is no accepted industry standard for SSE.
- Some service providers deploy SD-WAN with their own internally developed SD-WAN platforms, including Hughes and Aryaka.
- Security integration was cited as a top challenge in 2022 for Managed SD-WAN service providers offering two or more different SD-WAN platforms. Based on our mid-2023 research, this challenge is more problematic both technically and operationally, with some providers now integrating security across as many as five or more different SD-WAN solutions.
- MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Technology Certification has been attained by the following four LEADERBOARD companies: Cisco, Fortinet, VMware and Versa.
Market Players in this U.S. SD-WAN Technology segment include all other companies with site share below five percent (5%) of total U.S. Carrier Managed SD-WAN customer sites. For mid-2023, the Market Player tier includes the following companies (in alphabetical order): Adaptiv Networks, Arista, Barracuda, Cradlepoint, Ecessa, Extreme Networks, FatPipe, Forcepoint, GFI Software, Huawei, Juniper Networks, Lavelle Networks, Mushroom Networks, Netscaler, Nuage Networks from Nokia, Oracle, Palo Alto Networks, Riverbed, Teldat, WatchGuard, and others.