The 2021 SD-WAN Growth Report is Here!

It's time for the fifth annual Futuriom Software-Defined Wide-Area Networking (SD-WAN) Infrastructure Growth Report!

It's been fun to watch the software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) market evolve over a decade. Since the early days, Futuriom has tracked SD-WAN as it has grown into a multi-billion dollar market for virtualized networking services, ranging from everything from applications performance control to advanced security services.

We track SD-WAN on a regular basis, issuing two annual end-user surveys, taking regular briefings from vendors, and interviewing end users throughout the year. Our survey and interview work continues to demonstrate that SD-WAN is a well-positioned technology to help companies implementing digital transformation environments that now carry the added burden of needing to support complex hybrid work and remote work environments.

Next Phase of Growth

The SD-WAN market is now ready to enter into its next phase of growth as it overlaps and extends into new markets, including multi-cloud networking and the movement known as Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). This leaves room for SD-WAN to expand as a platform to provide just about any virtualized network service that can be accessed in the cloud.

After reviewing our survey results for the year, speaking to a community of more than a dozen SD-WAN vendors and interviewing dozens of end users, Futuriom has concluded that the SD-WAN market has re-accelerated from its brief pandemic pause in the 1H of 2020 and is on track to fulfill our long-term projection of a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34% in bundled hardware and software SD-WAN services. Futuriom expects the SD-WAN market to reach $2.6 billion in 2021, $3.5 billion by 2022, $4.6 billion by 2023. The continued growth will be spurred by demand for more agile, high-performance, and secure connections to cloud applications.

Key SD-WAN Drivers: SASE, Multi-cloud, and WFA

The software- and cloud-oriented nature of SD-WAN makes it an ideal way to adapt networks toward remote workers, because secure connections can be managed and re-rerouted as needed. At the same time, the advent of the SASE markets means that more SD-WAN and security players are integrating wider security solution sets with SD-WAN products to form SASE solutions, including Secure Web Gateways (SWGs), Firewall as a Service (FWaaS), Zero Trust Security, and Cloud Access Service Brokers (CASBs).

SD-WAN platforms are emerging as the enabling infrastructure for SASE that sets the stage for more growth by enabling the integration of cloud security applications with the network. In fact, many SD-WAN leaders have been busy adding SASE functionality to their product lines, as we will discuss in more detail later. These trends will help enterprises re-orient their networking infrastructure to be more agile and secure, which will help them adapt to the changing work environments.

The bottom line is that cloud-hosted SD-WAN, SASE, and virtual networking represent some of the more disruptive markets that enable enterprises and organizations to set up and manage secure WAN connections using cloud software deployment and management approaches. SD-WAN serves as a platform for all these functions, growing its role to speed up and secure cloud connectivity. This is becoming a key growth area for enterprise communications services.

Companies featured in this report: Aryaka, Cato Networks, Cisco, Citrix, Cloudflare, FatPipe, Fortinet, HPE (Aruba and Silver Peak), Infiot, Itential, Juniper Networks, Nuage Networks (Nokia), Palo Alto Networks, Versa Networks, VMware.