CF20: 2024's 20 Top SD-WAN Providers You Should Know

Dell’Oro’s Mauricio Sanchez said over the past year Cisco has come on strong with the forced transition from the venerable ISR 4000 access router to its modern Catalyst 8000 series routers. And Omdia’s Brian Washburn cites Cisco among top SD-WAN providers.

“The ISR 4000 was introduced much before SD-WAN was a thing and though it supported it, it was not optimized,” Sanchez said. “This opened a competitive flank that pure-plays like VeloCloud (now Broadcom/VMware) and security vendors like Fortinet took advantage of for numerous years. Cisco ultimately responded with the Catalyst 8000 series family. While customer uptake of the Catalyst 8000 was starting to take place, Cisco last year announced that it was no longer going to sell key ISR 4000 models to put the Catalyst 8000 adoption on the fast track.”

Sanchez said HPE Aruba Networking is a noteworthy SD-WAN provider. HPE Aruba Networking was listed as a leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN. This was the sixth year in a row that HPE Aruba Networking was listed as a leader.

Netskope is among top SD-WAN providers, Sanchez said.

“Enterprise requirements for SD-WAN are evolving from the early days of concerns about cost and agility, to flexibility, adaptability and reach,” said S&P Global’s Eric Hanselman. “Enterprises are working to address the challenges of a hybrid world in which their employees are more mobile, their application infrastructure is more cloud-based and their partner ecosystems are more dispersed. That means that they need to manage access to SaaS applications more than on-premises and need networking capabilities that can keep up with these more complex combinations. SD-WAN offerings have to provide performant cloud connectivity, as well as branch. Security capabilities are becoming a standard requirement as the integration that SASE and SSE approaches offer is adopted by more enterprises.”

Sanchez cites Arista Networks among noteworthy SD-WAN providers. Last November, Arista Networks announced an expanded zero trust networking architecture that uses the underlying network infrastructure to break down security silos, streamline workflows and enable an integrated zero trust program. Through a combination of Arista-developed technologies and strategic alliances with key partners, this approach uses the network to compensate for harder-to-implement zero trust controls across the domains of devices, workloads, identity and data.

Palo Alto Networks is among leaders in SD-WAN, Sanchez said. Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE delivers a SASE solution that unifies network security, SD-WAN and autonomous digital experience management into a cloud-delivered service.

Sanchez said Huawei is among noteworthy SD-WAN providers. In March, Huawei announced that it had been named a 2024 Customers' Choice distinction in the Gartner Peer Insights Voice of the Customer for SD-WAN Report. As of Dec. 31, Huawei received a total of 81 customer reviews, and had the highest overall rating (5/5 stars) and 100% customer willingness to recommend.

Comcast Business’ global SD-WAN portfolio includes two solutions tailored for businesses with standalone locations. The SD-WAN solutions enable SMBs, with either a single location or multiple standalone locations, to help securely connect and manage their network, applications and users.

Aryaka is among SD-WAN leaders, Sanchez said. In February, Aryaka announced Shailesh Shukla, previously with Google, as its CEO. Shukla said Aryaka has already reached the $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) milestone that 98% of venture-backed companies never do. Now, he wants Aryaka to become the next billion-dollar security industry player.

Sanchez said Fortinet is among noteworthy SD-WAN providers. In February, Fortinet launched a new compact, ruggedized appliance built to deliver enhanced secure networking capabilities and 5G connectivity to operational technology (OT) environments. The appliance not only converges enterprise-grade threat protection with networking capabilities like SD-WAN and zero-trust network access (ZTNA), but also delivers wireless WAN functionality to ensure high availability.

Sanchez cites Check Point Software Technologies among top SD-WAN providers. Check Point’s Quantum SD-WAN is deployed at the branch level and provides prevention against zero-day, phishing and ransomware attacks, while optimizing routing for users and over 10,000 applications.

SonicWall is among leading SD-WAN providers, Sanchez said.

“When a market is adapting, as SD-WAN is, there are opportunities for differentiation with additional services and capabilities,” Hanselman said. “The shift to security integration opens the door to improving competitive positioning as the journey to SASE continues. SD-WAN is a mature market that is better understood by buyers, reducing the amount of market education that’s required to prove value in an SD-WAN offering.”

Sanchez said Cato Networks is among top SD-WAN providers. In February, Cato Networks announced strong 2023 business results, including 59% revenue growth, the addition of more than 700 new enterprise customers, ongoing channel expansion and continued innovation across its SASE platform.

In January, Zscaler announced general availability for its Zero Trust SD-WAN solution and portfolio of plug-and-play appliances to help customers modernize secure connectivity for branch offices, factories and data centers, while also eliminating the need for firewalls and VPNs.

“One vendor that just entered the SD-WAN market, and never did I imagine they would, is Zscaler,” Sanchez said. “After numerous years of talking down SD-WAN, they finally realized that an on-premises networking device is necessary. While their solution barely qualifies as an SD-WAN solution, I can imagine they will continue to improve as time goes on.”

Sanchez said Broadcom, which completed its acquisition of VMware last November, is among top SD-WAN providers. In February, Broadcom announced new developments across its 5G, SD-WAN, SASE and Edge Compute, collectively its software-defined edge portfolio, to enable communications service providers (CSPs) to modernize their networks and create new monetizable services. The new developments were also co-innovated with ecosystem partners and enable enterprises to run workloads at the edge at scale with automation and observability.

Versa Networks is among leading SD-WAN providers, Sanchez said.

Omdia’s Brian Washburn said there’s room for new entrants in the SD-WAN market, “but they would have to bring something new and different to the table, and then compete against a bunch of entrenched players that have been ramping up their clout.”

“In other words, I’d just expect more people to offer SD-enabled gear from adjacencies,” he said. “There’s always room for small service providers that take innovative new ways to manage enterprises’ SD-WAN fabrics for them. But they won’t look like SD-WAN vendors per se, they’ll be consultancies and VARs.”

Cradlepoint is among SD-WAN market leaders, Sanchez said. In April, Cradlepoint launched its 5G-based SASE platform that integrates cellular SD-WAN and security features such as zero-trust and remote browser isolation (RBI) capabilities. Cradlepoint NetCloud SASE addresses the need to protect and secure dynamic environments, such as shifting locations, roaming vehicles, multiplying IoT devices, and employees connecting from diverse and distributed locations.

Sanchez said Forcepoint is among noteworthy SD-WAN Providers. Forcepoint’s FlexEdge Secure SD-WAN optimizes connectivity to private, public and hybrid cloud environments, enabling increased application performance while enforcing security policies to thousands of sites, all from a central location.

Sanchez said Juniper Networks is among noteworthy SD-WAN providers. HPE is acquiring Juniper Networks for about $14 billion. The deal, which should close either late this year or early next year, will pair Juniper Networks with HPE's Aruba networking business.

Barracuda Secure SD-WAN combines the connectivity features of standalone SD-WAN products and the security functionality of next-generation firewalls in a single solution. It ensures users of SaaS applications like Office 365, Salesforce, Google, Slack and others get low-latency performance to be productive.

AT&T ranks No. 1 for the sixth consecutive year in Vertical Systems Group‘s latest carrier-managed SD-WAN leaderboard.

“Everyone uses SD-WAN differently," Washburn said. "One common denominator is helping unlock more of the net functionality for those enterprises who treated SD-WAN initially as a router upgrade."

AT&T ranks No. 1 for the sixth consecutive year in Vertical Systems Group‘s latest carrier-managed SD-WAN leaderboard.

“Everyone uses SD-WAN differently," Washburn said. "One common denominator is helping unlock more of the net functionality for those enterprises who treated SD-WAN initially as a router upgrade."