Vertical Systems Group’s first Leaderboard assessing the suppliers used for U.S. carrier managed SD-WAN services consists of Cisco (featuring Meraki MX, SD-WAN), VMware (SD-WAN by Velocloud), Fortinet (FortiGate), Versa Networks (Secure SD-WAN) and HPE Aruba (EdgeConnect SD-WAN). The suppliers are listed in descending order by market share.
Each supplier has 5% or more of the total number of SD-WAN sites installed and billable as of June 30. A site is counted once per supplier regardless of the amount of equipment installed, according to VSG.
Carrier Managed SD-WAN
Below the Leaderboard category is a category that VSG calls the Market Player category.
Suppliers in this segment have less than 5% of the total U.S. carrier managed SD-WAN customer sites. For mid-2023, these companies include Adaptiv Networks, Arista, Barracuda, Cradlepoint, Ecessa, Extreme Networks, FatPipe, Forcepoint, GFI Software, Huawei, Juniper Networks, Lavelle Networks, Mushroom Networks, Netscaler, Nuage Networks from Nokia, Oracle, Palo Alto Networks, Riverbed, Teldat, WatchGuard and others.
The list – which does not include some Market Players – is in alphabetical order.
VSG offered highlights about the U.S. carrier managed SD-WAN sector:
- Carrier managed SD-WAN sites in the U.S. are projected to surpass one million by 2027. These sites are managed by a network operator, utilize an SDN architecture, enable dynamic optimization of site connectivity and provide centralized network control with visibility end-to-end.
- Technology suppliers providing SD-WAN equipment to service providers may also supply secure access service edge (SASE) and security service edge (SSE) technology. A SASE Service Framework (MEF 117) was finalized by MEF in October 2022. There is no industry standard for SSE.
- Some service providers, including Hughes and Aryaka, deploy SD-WAN with internally developed SD-WAN platforms.
- Security integration was cited as a top challenge in 2022 for managed SD-WAN service providers offering two or more different SD-WAN platforms. Some providers are integrating security across five or more SD-WAN solutions.
- Four LEADERBOARD companies — Cisco, VMware, Fortinet, and Versa – have attained MEF 3.0 SD-WAN technology certification.