Vodafone and Orange Business Services topped the leaderboards of Forester Research's Q4 2020 SD-WAN Services report this week, narrowly beating out Colt Technology Services and Tata Communications to claim the leadership spot.

The quarterly report seeks to identify the 10 most significant SD-WAN service providers and rank them based on 30 criteria spread across three categories: current offering, strategy, and market presence.

To be considered, service providers must be able to furnish WAN connections or backbone, supply and manage SD-WAN appliances or software, and prove significant market adoption. Any features or capabilities offered after March 11, 2020, were scored under the strategy portion of the evaluation, Forrester noted.

Forrester praised Vodafone for its ability to unify multiple SD-WAN offerings with services from Juniper, Cisco's Meraki and Viptela, and VMware's VeloCloud under a single customer portal.

"The company has focused its [research and development] on integrating security into its SD-WAN solutions. With multiple SD-WAN platforms and security integration across each, customers can focus on finding the right one for their unique applications and traffic entering and leaving their remote sites," the analysts wrote. "Global organizations that have a strong presence in [Europe, the Middle East, and Africa] and [the Asia-Pacific region] and need deep SD-WAN expertise should consider Vodafone."

Meanwhile, Forester complimented Orange's "wide global reach" and "rich set of services."

Orange offers SD-WAN service using Cisco's Meraki and Viptela platforms as well as Fortinet's Secure SD-WAN platform. However, Forrester notes that Viptela — sold under the Flexible SD-WAN moniker — is Orange's preferred platform, typically reserving Meraki and Fortinet for highly distributed enterprises such as retail operations.

"One of the strongest value propositions of Flexible SD-WAN is leveraging multiple types of transports and connections to improve application performance," the report reads. "Many multinational firms struggle for consistency of connection types and instead rely on a wide range of transport, connections, and service providers."

Tata, Colt, Lumen (formerly CenturyLink), Aryaka Networks, Verizon Business, and AT&T Business, were ranked "strong performers" in the report.

Strong performers fall somewhere in the middle of the ranking, either falling short of leadership based on the strength of their current product offering, or the competency of their long-term strategy, according to Forrester. Colt and Tata narrowly missed the leadership ranking, while the other strong performers fell closer to the middle of the ranking.

Tata offers SD-WAN service using Versa Networks, Viptela, as well as its own IZO SD-WAN platform. Forester noted that Tata is a good fit for customers that need a service provider with a presence in the Asia-Pacific region and global deployments experience.

Colt received praise for its "strong roadmap and robust offering," however Forester expressed some concern that the company's reliance on Versa could introduce challenges if the SD-WAN vendor exits the market or is acquired.

Colt currently offers services across 32 countries in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and North America. "Customers working with Colt can take advantage of its extensive end-to-end connectivity and good strategy on security and customer experience."

Forrester counted two service providers, Masergy and GTT Communications, as contenders in its ranking. The firm called out Masergy's deep integration with its SD-WAN partners, which include Fortinet and Silver Peak, to provide a unified customer portal and intelligent service control. However, it should be noted that a recent restructuring of Masergy's SD-WAN offerings means it now relies solely on Fortinet's platform.

"Customers looking for personalized service and feel, along with a strong pedigree in unified communications, should investigate Masergy," the analysts wrote.

Meanwhile, GTT earned marks for its large services presence in 140 countries, and its experience providing cloud networking services to large multinational clients. "GTT typically orders and manages all access circuits and doesn't offer long-term SD-WAN contracts over an existing transport service with another carrier," Forrester cautioned in the report.

Despite this, Forrester highlighted the service provider's "single-pane-of-glass" management portal and self-service tools.