Traditional network operators like BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Verizon and AT&T are in prime position to capture one-third of the expected $8.7 billion investment enterprises are forecast to make in multicloud network-as-a-service (NaaS) by 2028, according to a report from Analysys Mason.

The research predicts those operators will pocket 32% of that global enterprise spend on multicloud NaaS, which “offer platform-based NaaS having introduced sufficient automation and programmability in their IP networks.”

Highlights of such work can be seen in Orange Business’ recent deal to provide connectivity for Haier Europe’s global digital transformation efforts. This move has Orange Business tapping its recently launched Evolution Platform, which allows enterprise customers to “compose” their own services through a self-service console or an API, which can also be used to service chain those offerings, with those services managed by Orange with service level agreements (SLAs).

Simone Pezzoli, group chief digital technology officer for Haier Europe, told SDxCentral that the decision to work with Orange Business simplified its deployment and management process, which was one of the first items discussed when Haier Europe began talking with partners on this process.

“We wanted to have partners, we don’t want to have just a vendor,” Pezzoli said. “We just don’t want to have someone that is implementing something but someone that is helping us out to implement to the right level of accuracy, do that within the right level of time, and also providing world-class service and support. And that’s what we are measuring Orange against.”

“We don’t have infinite resources to deliver on our initiative nor to sustain it in the future,” Pezzoli said. “So having a trusted partner that can also help us out, not only during the execution of the delivery phase of the program but also to manage going forward and help us out in the in the near future for other transformation initiatives, for us it was paramount.”

Laurent Perrin, director for overlay connectivity solutions at Orange Business, explained that Haier’s path is becoming increasingly common among enterprise customers.

“We see enterprises looking for a unified management model that is covering the network and the security, but at the same time there are also differences in each organization in the way the network and the security is being managed,” Perrin said.

Verizon Business is seeing a similar surge in enterprise interest tied to growing challenges of limited IT teams having to manage data sprawled across private and public clouds.

“Our large enterprise customers, they have multiple cloud providers. There’s AWS (Amazon Web Services), there’s Azure, there’s [Google Cloud Platform], Oracle, IBM, all the large cloud providers; and what has happened is the environment has become very complex as they build applications on these different clouds,” Debika Bhattacharya, chief technology solutions officer for Verizon Business, told SDxCentral. “Just the combinations of endpoints-to-cloud, cloud-to-cloud, data center-to-cloud, have made the whole networking environment extremely complex. You don’t have visibility across all these clouds. They don’t have tools that can manage all the different clouds.”

Analysys Mason noted that this traditional operator opportunity will be challenged by colocation exchange providers like Equinix and Digital Reality, “alternative [business-to-business network providers” like Megaport and Packet Fabric, and SD-WAN managed service providers. ... Those players will be vying for roughly $6 billion in enterprise spend by 2028.

“These players are all approaching the multicloud NaaS market from different starting points and are actively working to enhance their NaaS offerings, for example, by expanding their geographical coverage, improving their automation and self-service capabilities, offering a broader range of [layer-4 to layer-7] services in their marketplaces and exposing capabilities through open APIs and SDKs,” Joseph Attwood, analyst at Analysys Mason, wrote.

Bhattacharya admitted that Verizon Business’ efforts might compete most directly with services from vendors like Equinix or Megaport. “They provide connectivity to the cloud, but they don’t provision the elements that are inside network elements that are inside the router,” she explained.

Bhattacharya’s clarification does spill into Analysys Mason’s forecast that enterprise spending on multicloud networking software will hit $4.3 billion in 2028. The research firm explains that this software segment “includes cloud-based control and user plane solutions, such as cloud routers, gateways and load balancers, that can be used for provisioning and orchestrating networks that connect multiple cloud environments.”

That spend is predicted to be split between so-called “new entrant” providers like Aviatrix and Prosimo, “which offer overlay solutions that provide underlay abstraction and automation capabilities,” and incumbent SDN players like Cisco, F5 and Juniper that are extending their current efforts into the multicloud network space.

Analysys Mason also noted that some market start-ups are tapping into cloud-native approaches to their efforts like Kubernetes and service mesh platforms “to help build their multicloud app-to-app networking propositions.”

Combined, Analysys Mason predicts the enterprises will invest $13 billion in the multicloud networking space in 2028, which is nearly double it had forecast less than two years ago.