Cisco, the dominant router vendor, continues to find its footing in the burgeoning SD-WAN market, and its ascension to the top ranking on Vertical Systems Group’s U.S. SD-WAN Technology Leaderboard reflects the vendor’s growth in the segment.
Joining Cisco in the top five ranking are Broadcom, Fortinet, HPE Aruba Networking, and Versa Networks.
Cisco offers Meraki plus Catalyst SD-WAN (legacy Viptela), Broadcom offers VeloCloud SD-WAN, Fortinet offers Secure SD-WAN, HPE Aruba offers EdgeConnect SD-WAN (legacy Silver Peak), and the Versa Networks solution is Versa Secure SD-WAN.
To gain a top ranking on the leaderboard, each of these suppliers must have 5% or more of the total number of U.S. Carrier-Managed SD-WAN customer sites installed and billable as of December 31, 2024.
In VSG’s analysis, a site is counted once per supplier, regardless of the amount of SD-WAN equipment installed at the customer location.
“Companies ranked on the 2024 U.S. SD-WAN Technology LEADERBOARD are powering hundreds of thousands of Carrier Managed SD-WAN customer installations across the U.S.,” said Rosemary Cochran, Principal, Vertical Systems Group.
Opportunities and challenges
As managed SD-WAN service adoption rises, it creates new opportunities and challenges for suppliers.
To accommodate the range of requirements and evolving needs of their customers, the top Managed SD-WAN providers are offering products from three or more technology suppliers.
VSG noted that SD-WAN suppliers face various challenges.
For one, integrating SSE and/or SASE with SD-WAN services poses a significant challenge for technology suppliers, service providers, and customers.
Meanwhile, the uncertainty of Broadcom’s VeloCloud offering has driven some Managed SD-WAN service providers to shift their customers to other solutions.
Technology suppliers step up
Given the diversity of needs for SD-WAN, technology suppliers are also assuming a key role in the managed SD-WAN market.
In response to this emerging need, VSG introduced a Challenge Tier to track these players.
The Challenge Tier includes Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions, Nuage Networks from Nokia and Palo Alto Networks.
Ericsson Wireless Solutions offers its wireless-first branch architecture, which includes NetCloud Manager, enabling AI-driven operations, centralized eSIM provisioning, SD-WAN, zero-trust security, and access to 5G Advanced network slices.
Nuage, meanwhile, is focused on accommodating various architectures. The vendor’s multi-tenant SD-WAN, whether cloud-based or on-premises, is a multi-tenant SD-WAN platform with all infrastructure components fully maintained by Nuage, either in secure cloud hosting centers or as a managed rack at the CSP/SI location.
Finally, Palo Alto Networks’ secure Prisma Access SD-WAN hub can be consumed as a service, or an enterprise can build the hub and interconnect infrastructure themselves using Palo Alto Networks' next-generation firewalls.
The ability to accommodate various situations will likely drive these vendors and others to focus on a solution-based approach that offers enhanced security, increased automation, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) to manage increasingly complex networks.
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About the Author
Sean Buckley
Sean is responsible for establishing and executing the editorial strategies of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report across their websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products.