SD-WAN is doing to enterprise WANs what cloud did to enterprise data centers almost a decade ago.

As the enterprise WAN networking space gets altered in an irreversible manner, adoption trends for SD-WAN cut across various network functions.

A recent end-user survey conducted by Frost and Sullivan, on behalf of Silver Peak, offers deep insights into IT decision makers' mindset regarding SD-WAN.

To understand global enterprise perceptions and activities regarding SD-WAN, Frost - Sullivan, on behalf of Silver Peak, conducted a web-based, end-user survey administered to IT decision makers in April 2018.

The survey represents 850 companies in five industries: manufacturing, healthcare, banking, financial services and insurance, healthcare, retail, technology.

Here are some of the key highlights from the survey:

Networking

There has been a lot of hype around Internet links replacing MPLS in the WAN, but the Frost and Sullivan survey indicates otherwise.

Both US and global enterprises are choosing dual Internet or Ethernet and Internet for some sites, but are continuing to keep MPLS links at critical sites.

Adoption

SD-WAN was deployed or underway in 33% of the companies surveyed.

61% of respondents intend to deploy SD-WAN in the next 24 months.

Integration

SD-WAN impacts several WAN functions and affects enterprise IT decision-makers

Organisations should embrace SD-WAN appliances with integrated routing and WAN opt functions but keep existing CPE-based solutions until maintenance contracts expire

Benefits

The top benefits of SD-WAN for global enterprise IT decision-makers are enhanced resiliency the virtual overlay offers by detecting and moving traffic from a link before any failure and flexibility of granular security policies.

Management

When buying SD-WAN the market is almost equally divided between fully managed solutions and DIY and co-managed solutions.