The rise of artificial intelligence should be on your radar this year for a variety of reasons, including SD-WAN. While SD-WAN isn’t new—it’s been around for a while—the technology is quickly evolving, with several new capabilities on the horizon.
Traditional software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) allows users to access cloud applications over the Internet, whether they’re working from home or at a branch office. Since they don’t have to route through a data center, SD-WAN can boost performance, reliability, and security, while potentially reducing costs.
While traditional SD-WAN solutions were primarily designed for on-premise systems (and required dedicated hardware), cloud-native SD-WAN solutions are typically much more accessible. Organizations no longer need to invest heavily in hardware, which reduces their capital expenses. For example, at CCI, we include hardware in the overall price, so it becomes an operating expense.
Research firm Gartner expects the market for SD-WAN will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.6%, reaching $8 billion by 2026. Enter artificial intelligence and as-a-service offerings, and these evolving capabilities are taking SD-WAN to the next level. Here are three trends to keep an eye on in the coming year:
Optimize network data with AI
The next generation of SD-WAN solutions are incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyze network data for real-time decision-making. For example, AI/ML can be used to optimize traffic routing. By collecting and analyzing data across the network, it can provide better visibility into traffic patterns and application performance.
An SD-WAN integrated with AI/ML can help to create self-optimizing networks that continually improve network performance and security. In many cases, IT teams will be able to resolve issues before those issues take down the network or cause business disruptions.
AI/ML can also be used to monitor the network, automatically detect network issues, optimize performance, troubleshoot problems, identify security risks, and even mitigate those risks. Look for more SD-WAN offerings to include built-in AI/ML.
Find AI at the edge
AI/ML can also help to optimize network infrastructure at the edge, where devices connect to the public internet or a private network. Since data is processed at the ‘edge,’ rather than by sending it back and forth to a data center, processing is much faster.
At CCI, our SD-WAN solutions come with two key differentiators. First, Dynamic Multi Path Optimization (DMPO) can make real-time determinations on which link is best suited for an application’s packet delivery, based on a Quality of Experience (QoE) model defined for several thousand application use cases.
Second, Edge Network Intelligence (ENI) evaluates LAN-based devices and, using AI, predicts and resolves self-healing remediation to events in the LAN and WAN.
Move to a managed SD-WAN model
Many IT teams are turning to as-a-service offerings, and that includes SD-WANs. For example, many network-as-a-service (NaaS) solutions deliver SD-WAN capabilities, such as policy-driven route optimization and traffic prioritization.
This will likely result in more SD-WAN-as-a-service offerings down the road. Indeed, the managed SD-WAN services market, which was valued at $1 billion in 2023, is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of more than 33% between 2024 and 2032, according to research from Global Market Insights.
At CCI, our solution offering includes managed SD-WAN designed to support IT teams. For example, role-based privileges and permissions can be tricky, and even a sophisticated company can take down their entire network if they don’t understand the changes they’re introducing into their WAN.
Want to learn more? Find out how Consolidated’s SD-WAN optimizes office internet for cloud applications and site-to-site VPN traffic by leveraging multiple providers to build a higher-performance connection over commodity broadband.