ISG Provider Lens™ Network - Software Defined Solutions and Services Partners - Archetype Report 2020
Managed wide area network (WAN) services, multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), among others form the backbone of the revenue generated through customer deployments by telcos and service providers worldwide. This, however, is changing rapidly. The softwaredefined network (SDN) and software defined WAN (SD-WAN) segments are evolving and rapidly capturing market share, as are other related network services such as network function virtualization (NFV), mobility (LTE/4G/5G) additional services and software-defined local area networks (SD-LAN), with their triggers and influences, This is driven primarily by cloud migration of information and communication technology (ICT) and the ongoing digital transformation of business processes. These changes enable businesses to meet the requirements of a dynamic world by increasing agility and flexibility, boosting customer satisfaction, strengthening competitive positioning and reducing overall network costs , allowing enterprises to reinvest these savings in advanced ICT, such as intent based networking with new strategies.
Many companies reviewed within this study are involved in early stage deployments or in advanced pilot projects and, in many cases, are converting these projects to production-level deployments; others have already completed this journey. Concurrently, new technology, methods and processes are under trial. This evolutionary rather than revolutionary approach, taken together with the relative newness of SDN leads ISG to note that significant volatility exists in the constellation of market providers The volatility is set to continue and may even intensify during the remainder of 2020 as SDN continues to strengthen its hold in the enterprise landscape and more partnering or M&A between providers.
In our recently published ISG Provider Lens™ study on Networks – Software Defined Solutions and Service Partners 2020, we examined the requirements and capabilities of the provider landscape globally as well as in specific geographies within the following segments:
Managed WAN Services
Managed WAN services cover features and functionalities that carriers offer at the customer point of demarcation. It is a collection of value-added services that include monitoring and reporting, security and outsourced customer premise equipment (CPE) functions. Many enterprises perceive managed WAN services as the means to outsource IT functions, and they purchase them along with consulting and professional services to assess, design and implement their networks. At a basic level, managed WAN services from carriers monitor and provide alerts on critical problems such as network outages. Higher tiers of service can add configuration management, proactive troubleshooting and trouble resolution, service-level agreement (SLA) management, more sophisticated and granular monitoring and reporting, on-the-ground CPE installation and hardware support to ensure CPE software is up to date and configured correctly, and overall lifecycle management.
This section covers all major suppliers of managed WAN services to enterprises.
Managed SD-WAN Services
SD-WAN provides the benefits of SDN technology over traditional hardware-based networking. It is an overlay architecture with a networking foundation that is much easier to manage than legacy WAN and essentially moves the control layer to the cloud and, in the process, centralizes and simplifies network management. This overlay design abstracts software from hardware, enabling network virtualization and making the network more flexible. The SD-WAN architecture reduces recurring network costs, offers network-wide control and visibility and simplifies the technology with zero-touch deployment and centralized management. The key aspect of SD-WAN architecture is that it can communicate with all network endpoints without the need for external mechanisms or additional protocols. Managed services providers have increasingly been active in supplying complete managed SD-WAN solutions to enterprises; they also offer them as white-label products for telco providers or integrators as a part of their broader strategic implementations.
This section covers all major suppliers of managed SD-WAN services to enterprises.
SDN Transformation Services (Consulting & Implementation)
SDN and SD-WAN provide the benefits of SDN technology over traditional hardware-based networking and can be related to NFV. SD-WAN is driven by current business requirements to enable agility and flexibility, while simplifying network management, deployments and reducing costs. It is an overlay architecture with a networking foundation that is much easier to manage than legacy WANs; it moves the control layer to the cloud, thereby centralizing and simplifying network management. Providers have been increasingly active as advisors/consultants in this area and are also working as implementors , supplying complete or partial solutions to enterprises. Consulting companies, large vendors and managed network service providers have also been actively involved in offering SD-WAN packages in this area (independently or as a part of partnership/consortium deals).
This section covers all advisory/consulting, hardware and software, management/reporting tools, applications and services associated with delivering SD-WAN to enterprises (from consulting to delivery of managed SD-WAN services).
SD-WAN Equipment and Service Suppliers (DIY)
SD-WAN provides the benefits of SDN technology to traditionally hardware-based networking. It is easier to manage than legacy WANs, essentially centralizing and simplifying network management and easing deployment with a cloud-based control layer. This overlay design abstracts software from hardware, enabling network virtualization and making the network more flexible. One of the key aspects of the architecture is that it can communicate with all network endpoints without the need for external mechanisms or additional protocols. Providers have been active in directly selling SD-WAN solutions to enterprises for their DIY (enterprises’ own and non-managed) implementations and are increasingly partnering with licensed telco/service providers in their delivery packages in this space.
This section covers all hardware and software, management/reporting tools, applications and services associated with delivering SD-WAN for enterprise-owned operations.
Network Technologies Suppliers (Core to Mobile)
SD technology is a networking approach that eliminates the complex and static nature of legacy distributed network architectures by using a standards-based software abstraction between the network control plane and underlying data forwarding plane, including both physical and virtual devices. It enables improvements in network agility and automation while substantially reducing the cost of network operations when compared to traditional network deployments. Adopting an industry standard data plane abstraction protocol (such as OpenFlow) allows the use of any type and brand of data plane devices as all the underlying network hardware is addressable through a common abstraction protocol. Such a protocol allows for the dynamic and automatic provisioning of virtual network segments and virtual routing services on both physical and virtual networking devices. These are considered as core network functions. Additionally, all edge components may be managed and dealt with in the same manner as core and SD-WAN components, with software-defined capabilities to include the branch and edge functionality, as well as associated Wi-Fi networks, access points (APs), software-defined mobile networks (SDMNs) and software-defined local area networks (SD-LANs) that include both wireless (SD-WLAN) or mobile (SD-WMLAN).
This section covers all vendors of SD core services that are purchased directly by either enterprises or service providers for specific enterprise projects. It includes those supplying solutions that can integrate into an enterprise wide SD-WAN strategy to the branch or remote office locations, incorporating Wi-Fi/wireless and LAN/SD-LAN solutions (including vCPE solutions).
Mobile Network (4G/5G) Additional (non-core) Services
Fifth-generation mobile networks or wireless systems (commonly known as 5G) are the next telecommunications standards after the current long-term evolution (LTE)/4G technology and operate in the millimeter wavebands (28, 38 and 60 GHz). 5G is designed to provide higher capacity than the current 4G, allowing a greater density of mobile broadband users at higher transfer speeds and enabling more device-to-device, reliable and massive machine communications. It is also aimed at lower latency and reduced battery consumption than 4G equipment and is targeted at the mobile high-speed data and the Internet of Things (IoT). This segment covers specific mobility-targeted services or solutions, applications, management systems and methods, end-device control and management and related services. These services are offered by service providers or suppliers, either as discrete solutions or as modules that will integrate with or rely on SDN or SD-WAN.
This section covers all suppliers of these additional services that make use of SD systems via LTE/4G or 5G delivery. We do not cover core licensed mobile telephony/data services themselves.
All of the data gathered, and analysis undertaken during the process of creation of the Networks – Software Defined Solutions and Service Partners 2020 IPL study was used as direct input into this archetype report and helps shape the data inputs to the analysis ratings within this archetype.
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