Despite a flurry of acquisitions and the general furor surrounding secure access service edge (SASE), Gartner’s 2021 Magic Quadrant WAN Edge Infrastructure report remained largely unchanged from last year.

The same six vendors — Fortinet, VMware, Versa, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, and Silver Peak — graced the leadership category in this year's report.

The only notable changes from last year were the ascension of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Aruba to the leadership category following the $925 million of Silver Peak last year, and Gartner’s decision to drop Teldat after it failed to meet inclusion criteria.

Unlike many industry reports that rank vendors based on market share or revenues, Gartner’s annual Magic Quadrant attempts to place vendors into one of four categories — niche players, visionaries, challengers, and leaders — based on the completeness of their vision and their ability to meet enterprise demands.

Juniper Networks held on to its visionary status, despite the high-profile acquisition of tunnel-less SD-WAN vendor 128 Technology last fall and the vendor’s developments in artificial intelligence operations (AIOps).

Gartner estimates Juniper has more than 18,000 WAN edge customers and highlighted the acquisition of 128 Technology for its technical merit, but called out the vendor’s “below-average” customer experience scores, and spotty track record in SD-WAN.

The report also warned that Juniper's limited market visibility when it comes to SD-WAN could be a potential headwind moving forward.

Citrix and Huawei were once again the sole challengers in this year's WAN Edge report.

According to Gartner, despite Huawei’s broad portfolio and relatively large customer base — analysts estimate more than 20,000 WAN edge customers — the vendor is hampered by geopolitical issues preventing it from expanding into the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, and Indian Markets.

Most of the business is limited to mainland China, and a handful of countries in the Asia Pacific, Middle East, Europe, and Africa, and Latin American regions.

The story is largely the same for Citrix, which Gartner estimates has approximately 1,700 WAN edge customers. But rather than a geopolitical barrier, Gartner reports Citrix's go-to-market strategy is to blame.

"Citrix's go-to-market is limited globally — especially in North America — with service providers, which affects its ability to reach clients and grow," the report reads.

Despite this, Gartner reports Citrix has one of the broadest WAN portfolios of any vendor on the market, including, SD-WAN, application performance optimization, security, and cloud connectivity. This is hampered some by poor market visibility as "Citrix is not seen as a networking vendor" and "rarely comes up in client inquires," the analysts report.

Despite the lack of movement in this year’s report, Gartner predicts a substantial shift among SD-WAN customers toward SASE architectures and internet WAN infrastructure.

“By 2024, more than 70% of software-defined wide-area network customers will have implemented a secure access service edge architecture, compared to 40% in 2021,” analysts predict.

And by 2025, Gartner anticipates, 40% of enterprises will have shifted to an internet-only WAN infrastructure, cutting the MPLS cord entirely.

Finally, Gartner expects AI automation to play an increasing role in SD-WAN deployments, as customers look for ways to reduce day-two operating costs.