Managed SD-WAN Services Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Rising Popularity of Remote Work - SD-WAN services replace traditional branch routers with appliance-centric software, which aids in providing users with the best possible connection to the corporate network anytime, anywhere, and also allows teams to work securely in remote locations with full redundancy. For instance, the proportion of employees working remotely around the world has increased from around 19% in 2020 to more than 25% in 2023.
• Growing Adoption of 5G Technology - The adoption of SD-WAN and 5G technologies is increasing around the world as they can complement each other to deliver a seamless network experience by demonstrating high reliability in connecting cash register systems, scanners, security cameras, and PCs. For instance, there are currently more than 295 commercial 5G networks around the world, and this figure is expected to increase to over 435 by 2025.
• Increasing Healthcare Industry - Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) have the potential to be transformative for healthcare organizations as they help in routing traffic through the ideal delivery channel and ensuring data is delivered securely and precisely, and also provide consistent, secure, and reliable access to important health information to meet patient service standards.

Challenges

• Data privacy and security concerns - SD-WAN solutions that optimally route traffic over the public Internet suffer from inefficient routing and unreliable connectivity since organizations that use managed network services use the bandwidth of relatively insecure Internet connections, exposing their networks to the risk of data breaches and cyberattacks, thus additional security must be included to ensure data protection even in remote offices. Moreover, cloud-based applications also pose additional security concerns compared to traditional private networks as they utilize the Internet as the transport medium.
• Complexity associated with implementing SD-WAN solutions owing to its integration with existing networks
• Reliance on third-party service providers for network connectivity can impact performance.