GTT Communications is expanding its existing hybrid WAN services by deploying a new managed SD-WAN service for enterprise customers, according to an announcement by GTT yesterday.
Software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) service deployments have been ramping up this year as more multi-site enterprises are looking to service providers for solutions that can reduce their reliability on MPLS, improve broadband management and performance for cloud applications and add network visibility.
GTT's goal in launching its managed SD-WAN service is to expand its hybrid WAN networking and cloud networking services and provide support in light of the growth in enterprise network traffic and use of cloud-based applications. GTT Communications Inc. is deploying VeloCloud Networks Inc. cloud-delivered SD-WAN technology gateways across the GTT core network throughout North America, EMEA and APAC to deliver end-to-end, managed SD-WAN services to enterprise customers. (See GTT Launches Managed SD-WAN Service With VeloCloud.)
"Enterprises are constantly challenged to find cost-effective ways of delivering business applications to end-users," said Samir Desai, director of product management for GTT, in an email exchange with Telco Transformation. "GTT Managed SD-WAN services address this need by enabling multiple WAN access types (including secure Internet) to carry application traffic at the same time. WAN bandwidth can be managed so that mission critical application traffic can be reserved and routed through WAN paths that have inherent predictability and QOS (i.e. MPLS) and other traffic can utilize more cost-effective Internet based access."
The result is more effective utilization of available hybrid connectivity, said Desai. "Application performance visibility and, to some extent, optimization of the network performance of applications like VoIP or video, are benefits associated with the service," he added.
The SD-WAN market is poised to continue growing rapidly over the next few years. In fact, IDC predicts that the worldwide SD-WAN market for infrastructure and services will pass $6 billion in 2020. "For the 2015–2020 period, IDC estimates that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for SD-WAN will be 93%," noted an IDC report published in March 2016.
"There is a vibrant enterprise demand for SD-WAN. Anybody in the enterprise networking space who is slow to offer it will face potential market share loss," said Mark Winther, group vice president for Worldwide Telecom Consulting at IDC, in an email to Telco Transformation. "SD-WAN is not the end story, but it is a very powerful solution in 2017 and 2018. It is important to have a strategic vision that goes beyond SD-WAN to virtual network functions that leverage the power of software-ization and virtualization. I think GTT has that vision, and is properly positioning SD-WAN as step one in the ongoing evolution to advanced data services."
Although SD-WAN deployments are rapidly increasing, GTT's Desai said that MPLS continues to have a role both now and in the future within the corporate WAN network "due to its inherent predictability and COS support. SD-WAN simply provides a seamless way of augmenting other forms of WAN bandwidth to core MPLS connectivity (data centers, mission critical applications) to create a more effective hybrid WAN solution," he noted.
A number of service providers, including AT&T, TelePacific, Sprint, Windstream, Vonage, MetTel, EarthLink, Telstra, MegaPath, CHT Global, Global Capacity and NetOne, are also utilizing VeloCloud's SD-WAN technology, in addition to GTT.
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— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Senior Editor, Light Reading