Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD WAN): The Next Big Opportunity

When people in our industry ask me what I see as the next big opportunity, I have to say it’s software defined networking. SD-WAN allows partners to help their clients meet the demands of today’s connected economy: They benefit from scale, cost efficiencies and built-in network reliability. And they can overcome the complexity and cost of legacy MPLS networks that exist today. With more and more workloads moving to the cloud, the need for bandwidth has grown exponentially, especially at branch office locations where both employees and customers expect an “always on” connection and the ability to manage down to each site and every location running at that site.

SD-WAN services represent a significant new sales and revenue opportunity for our partners. Whether the customer is looking for a way to improve their current network performance, or looking to move to a much “smarter” network, you should consider SD-WAN. It represents a $13B to $15B dollar market opportunity: a significant new sales and revenue opportunity for the Channel.

In essence, SD-WAN adds a control layer on top of a customer’s existing network, simplifying the deployment of WAN services across all locations. Because SD-WAN is software-based, basic network services such as VPN, firewall and routing can run over any type of network connection. It’s a powerful combination of centralized software controls that quickly and cost effectively activate and manage basic network functions across a company’s entire network. It takes the complexity out of managing wide area networks (WANs) and lets customers manage down to the application level, allowing certain apps to run as they desire and others perhaps to have less priority.

With consistent and reliable connectivity, faster provisioning, and direct public cloud access at local branch offices, customers receive service that can help improve in-store sales and overall customer satisfaction. SD-WAN centralizes the ability to create and manage network policies across a distributed enterprise. It reduces the need for costly equipment and increases the speed at which network changes can be implemented. It allows businesses to prioritize, route and manage traffic across their network(s). And it provides business access to network and application performance data.

Comcast Business is poised to meet the unique demands of business customers with large networks stretching across multiple locations nationwide, while capturing market share and driving growth. We are excited to begin working with our partners on this exciting new opportunity! See more about this at https://business.comcast.com/sdn/sd-wan.