Vertical Systems Group says eight companies achieved a position on its 2018 U.S. Carrier Managed SD-WAN Services LEADERBOARD (in rank order): AT&T, Hughes, Verizon, Windstream, CenturyLink, Aryaka, Fusion and Comcast. The companies had the highest market shares of installed carrier managed SD-WAN customer sites in the United States as of year-end 2018.
"Providers in the carrier managed segment of the SD-WAN market have emerged as the best choice for delivering large scale, complex and resilient SD-WAN services end-to-end," said Rick Malone, principal of Vertical Systems Group. "We believe that network operators with deep experience in MPLS, Ethernet and IP are most favorably positioned to support enterprise customers as they transition their networks to SDN."
Companies with the next largest market shares in the segment are cited in the Challenge Tier. The following six companies attained a Challenge Tier citation for 2018 (in alphabetical order): Bigleaf, GTT, Masergy, Meriplex, Sprint, and TPx.
Other findings indicate:
- SD-WAN is one of the three managed VPN segments that Vertical tracks, along with MPLS and site-to-site VPNs. Service migration analysis indicates that the majority of carrier managed SD-WAN service installations to date are hybrid configurations that include partial conversions of existing site-to-site and MPLS networks.
- The top five carrier managed SD-WAN companies are also the leading providers of dedicated IP VPN services, including landline and satellite connectivity.
- A number of SDN-based technologies are utilized to deliver carrier managed SD-WAN services. The 14 LEADERBOARD and Challenge Tier providers use products from the following companies (in alphabetical order): Cisco/Viptela, Silver Peak, Versa, and VMware/VeloCloud, or employ their own internally developed technologies. Several SD-WAN service providers offer multiple solutions.
Vertical Systems Group defines a carrier managed SD-WAN service as a carrier-grade offering for business customers that is managed by a network operator, utilizes an SDN architecture, enables dynamic customer edge site connectivity, and provides centralized network control and visibility end-to-end. The definition aligns with MEF terminology for an SD-WAN service.