IDC evaluated 12 leading vendors in the SD-WAN market and identified Cisco, Fortinet, HPE Aruba, Palo Alto Networks and VMware as the leaders. All these top vendors are actively integrating SD-WAN with security and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, noted Brandon Butler, research manager of Enterprise Networks at IDC.

The analysis firm found the SD-WAN infrastructure market surged by 25% in 2022 and is anticipated to reach $7.5 billion with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 10.1% by 2027, according to its 2023 IDC MarketScape on Worldwide SD-WAN Infrastructure.

“SD-WAN growth is driven by a variety of factors, including some that were the initial impetus for the development of this technology, namely an ability to optimize the performance and management of the WAN while also saving costs,” Butler told SDxCentral in an email.

IDC's 2022 Global SD-WAN Survey found almost one-third of respondents (31.8%) said they expect to save more than 20% on WAN costs from deploying SD-WAN.

Other factors behind the adoption surge include the accelerated cloud adoption driving WAN transformation toward SD-WAN, secure access service edge (SASE) architectures that require SD-WAN and easier and centralized management of highly distributed WANs, according to Butler.

IDC assessed 12 SD-WAN vendors across 20 scoring criteria categories for strategy and capabilities.

The firm named Cisco, Fortinet, HPE Aruba, Palo Alto Networks and VMware as leaders Aryaka; Barracuda Networks, H3C, Huawei, Juniper Networks, Nokia and Versa Networks as major players or contenders, and Ericsson/Cradlepoint, Extreme Networks and Netskope as “vendors to watch,” but which did not meet the criteria to be included in the research.

Butler revealed the strengths and challenges of the top vendors:

• Cisco has a prominent SD-WAN market share, building on its strong heritage in Enterprise routing and Enterprise networking. The vendor offers two SD-WAN solutions: Catalyst and Meraki SD-WAN. The two solutions provide a comprehensive SD-WAN solution that meets a wide range of customer use cases and requirements, while tightly integrated with Cisco's security capabilities. However, having dual offerings has led to market and customer confusion regarding which platform is best for which use case.
• Fortinet offers SD-WAN and security-integrated capabilities through its FortiGate physical or virtual appliance, along with Local Area Network and Wireless Local Area Network products for a software-defined branch (SD-Branch), architecture. However, it is primarily a security vendor and some customers might prioritize an SD-WAN vendor with a heritage in networking specifically; also, there may be limitations to integrating Fortinet SD-WAN with third-party security tools.
• HPE Aruba Networking offers two primary SD-WAN solutions: EdgeConnect SD-WAN based on Silver Peak and SD-Branch integrating across Aruba's portfolio of Enterprise networking products. The vendor recently acquired security services edge (SSE) vendor Axis Security for SASE.
• Palo Alto Networks combines Prisma SD-WAN and its cloud-based security suite Prisma Access for a unified SASE. However, its primary identity as a security company may deter organizations seeking an SD-WAN vendor with a routing heritage. And the vendor does not have strong offerings for campus networking technology such as WLAN and LAN.
• VMware SD-WAN is based on technology from VeloCloud, which has a strong networking legacy. The vendor is  growing a portfolio of cloud-based security tools that it will deliver from its SD-WAN gateways. However, VMware does not offer its own WLAN or LAN solutions and the looming Broadcom acquisition has raised concerns among customers.

The leading vendors are riding the SD-WAN trends including the integration of SD-WAN and security, SASE, SD-Branch (SD-WAN + LAN/WLAN) and AI/machine learning (ML) for enhanced analytics and automation, according to IDC.

Butler noted Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks have strong SD-WAN and security integrations; Cisco Meraki, HPE Aruba Networking and Juniper Networks have compelling SD-Branch architecture approaches with a strong LAN/WLAN presence; and all the vendors started using AI/ML in varying ways. He pointed to Cisco’s predictive path recommendations feature as an example. It uses data from ThousandEyes WAN Insights and monitors historical network performance and Application traffic flow patterns to forecast network path quality and make path recommendations to optimize traffic.

“Having insights into network performance and end-user experience, and linking that data to advanced AI-enhanced automation systems becomes a powerful tool for enterprises that are managing globally distributed SD-WAN deployments,” Butler said.