Enterprises are starting to think “much more strategically” about how to support remote and hybrid workers, with as-a-service network models beginning to take over the market, IDC Analyst Brandon Butler said.

The rise of the public cloud about a decade ago led to some of the first as-a-service models, as companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS) emerged on the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) side and Salesforce on the software-as-a-service (SaaS) side, Butler noted.

“And really, since then, we've just seen these types of technologies all across the IT stack move toward as-a-service models,” he added.

Organizations are increasingly looking to extend enterprise-class networks to remote and hybrid workers, a concept the IDC calls “the branch of one.” IDC reported that 69% of global respondents to a recent survey are planning to invest in network transformation over the next 12 months, highlighting network-as-a-service (NaaS) as a challenger to legacy network models that necessitate substantial upfront capital.

“I would say in the early days there were a lot of what I would call band-aid solutions in terms of, well, maybe I'm just going to spin up some more VPN capacity to be able to support my remote and hybrid workers,” Butler told SDxCentral.

But as time has gone on, he said enterprises are starting to have “a better idea now of what our workforce looks like today and will look like into the future.”

In 2022, companies like Verizon and Aruba worked to bolster their NaaS offerings. The global NaaS market generated $11.2 billion in revenues in 2021, and is estimated to reach $72.2 billion in revenue by 2031, according to a report from Allied Market Research.

Benefits of the NaaS Model

NaaS replaces legacy network architecture like hardware-based VPNs and MPLS connections or on-premises networking appliances like firewalls and load balancers. Enterprises use NaaS to operate and control a network without needing to purchase, own, or maintain network infrastructure.

Butler said these as-a-service models are “really helping organizations sort of transform how they're thinking about their relationships with their vendors.”

“Things like as-a-service models, they certainly take into account a sort of consumption model and having more subscriptions, and operating expenses versus capital expenses,” he added.

NaaS models also bring in other benefits, like “being able to be faster or to be able to spin up services or spin down services, that sort of elasticity of them.”

The ability to add and remove features more dynamically, and manage networks from the cloud is another “tenant” that Butler said is key to as-a-service models.

"I always like to say that it's it's important to think about what the business needs from the IT department," he added.

"That's, I think, the best place to start in terms of what sort of business problems is your broader organization looking to solve and what goals does your organization have," Butler said. "And then I think that can help determine what sort of technology solutions are the right fit to help meet those business goals."