Feb 22, 2022
The WAN Managers Have Spoken (For Now)
We've crunched the numbers from our survey of WAN managers in 2021 and our new analysis is ready and waiting.
What'd we find?
We've crunched the numbers from our survey of WAN managers in 2021 and our new analysis is ready and waiting.
What'd we find?
One of the earliest and most persistent use cases for SD-WAN has been the ability to utilize alternative connectivity options like internet and fixed wireless. And our WAN Manager Survey data has shown us that, since 2018, MPLS has been losing ground to other wireline alternatives like DIA and broadband.
In a recent analysis, we highlighted how DIA has gained ground as an integral part of the global enterprise WAN and how it compares in price directly to MPLS.
However, it is not just a matter of switching underlay products, but also understanding the global pricing dynamics of those alternatives.
We're going to talk about the cloud. More specifically, cloud outages and how to avoid them and mitigate their impacts.
There's no way we can dig into this topic without touching on multicloud strategies.
Look out, WAN world.
TeleGeography's WAN Manager Survey now includes data collected throughout 2021.
Like in all previous versions, we asked questions about how networks are currently configured—and found that enterprise companies are increasingly embracing hybrid networks.
Let's get down to the nitty-gritty.
DIA has emerged as the first choice alternative product to MPLS in the hybrid WAN. And for good reason.
Many of us are still trying to decide whether 2021 felt like ten years or six months, but there is no doubt that aspects of it were extensions of 2020.
This was no exception in the WAN world, where we saw many trends continue, such as SD-WAN rollouts, expansion of local internet breakouts, and most enterprises continuing to have a large portion of workers staying home and connecting remotely.
My colleague Elizabeth Thorne and I had a great conversation about key corporate network trends at the end of the year—now it's time to dive into the hard data.
Business broadband is no longer a connection of last resort. In fact, it is an integral part of WAN architecture.
Unlike pricey network connectivity services like MPLS and DIA, business broadband is a cost-effective option for enterprises that push more traffic to the public internet and utilize SaaS applications.
As global enterprises become more reliant on cloud—and start to break away or reduce their traditional MPLS circuits—the “middle mile” of the internet is coming into focus.
Today, I want to examine the use cases that vendors hope to address through middle mile network services. (And their basic value proposition.)
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