There might be a discussion about bringing managed services such as SD-WAN into organizations’ digital transformation plans. While many enterprises might have unified communications on-premise, some vendors offer the possibility of running these services over software-defined wide area networks. This move could ride the growth in managed services migration.

Global Market Insights published a report in February estimating that the SD-WAN market will exceed $17 billion by 2025, according to a market research firm. The report also estimated that managed services in SD-WAN could grow at a compound annual rate of over 65% between 2019 and 2025. Vertical Systems Group, a network consulting firm, has also tracked migration to managed SDWAN. In July, it published a blog that predicted the domestic market for carrier-managed SD-WAN Services could reach $4.5 billion by 2023. However, in May, the firm posted a blog saying that had slightly lower expectations regarding SD-WAN. They called such migration “a more complicated undertaking than what has been presented to date, especially for larger enterprises and global networks.”

Companies such as Aryaka and MNJ Techno believe SD-WAN has the potential to prove its worth.

Vice president of product marketing and solutions marketing at SD-WAN provider Aryaka says he expects that most enterprise networking and communication deployments will move to managed services and away from DIY setups. He says that it will take five to ten years for the migration. “I see a lot more staying power with SD-WAN due to its flexibility and multivendor acceptability.” Aryaka works alongside multinational corporations that have multiple locations and continents. Ginsburg claims that his company facilitates UCaaS, but it is not a service provider. Instead, he works with suppliers like 8X8 or RingCentral.

Enterprises could be resistant to the idea of moving unified communication, which combines voice, instant messaging, and video calls, from an SD-WAN to on-premise. Ginsburg said. There are both business and technology considerations that need to be considered. He says that organizations need to have a better understanding of the value of SD-WAN before they can implement such a plan. Ginsburg states that once they have overcome this barrier and seen it as part of their transformation, it is easy to connect the dots.

For organizations with an existing “vanilla” communication provider that handles upgrades to their system, this could be a tough sell. Ginsburg suggests that a comparison of SD-WAN performance might change their minds.

MNJ Technologies, a managed services provider, believes that UCaaS is moving to the cloud through companies like RingCentral, Jive Communications, and Cisco. MNJ Technologies’ senior vice president Ben Niernberg says that SD-WAN is being used for UCaaS to give more control over voice packets and improve call quality. He says organizations want to make sure voice traffic doesn’t get hampered by calls cutting out or audio jitter. “With failsafe technology, calls don’t get dropped,” Niernberg says. “Essentially, you are becoming the Waze for voice traffic.”

Niernberg states that SD-WAN and UCaaS have had similar trajectories. However, UCaaS saw a tad quicker adoption. He says that both UCaaS and SD-WAN are moving at a faster pace due to the increased exposure of SD-WAN. He admits that there may be some hesitation among on-premise call management about switching to a cloud-based solution. However, with the right persuasive arguments, they could soon be convinced. He says that SD-WAN has become widely accepted as a solution for customers. He cites several advantages for SD-WAN, including lower costs, better data flow, and a better user experience. Niernberg refers to layer 7 of the Internet and says that SD-WAN was designed for it.

Ginsburg believes that UCaaS over a well-architected SDWAN can reduce latency and jitters. This could lead to a better user experience for enterprises and greater productivity. This could be a benefit to organizations that have personnel located in remote areas that need to connect to the headquarters. He says that distance can be a factor with the traditional infrastructure designed to support unified communication. He says that the internet is not optimized in terms of latency or the possibility for packet loss over a large area. Before SD-WAN is widely adopted as a backbone to unified communications, it may be necessary to address the complexities involved in migration raised by Vertical Systems Group.

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