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Confidence in SD-WAN Shaken by Digital Transformation, Finds Cato Networks IT Survey | |
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 02:42:51 PM | |
SD-WAN is set for strong growth in 2020 as buyers migrate from MPLS to a more agile and affordable alternative. Survey findings suggest focusing on SD-WAN for MPLS replacement and failing to fully consider digital transformation requirements undermines long-term SD-WAN satisfaction. TEL AVIV, Israel, January 21, 2019 —?Cato Networks?released the findings of its fourth annual State of the WAN report, “Network Transformation in 2020: Understanding Digital Transformation’s Impact on Enterprise Confidence in their Networks.” With 1333 IT professionals responding from across the globe, the report provides comprehensive insight into 2020 budgets, challenges, and digital transformation readiness of today’s enterprises. The survey finds that enterprises who deployed SD-WANs were less confident in their networks after undergoing digital transformation. The results highlight the importance of considering not only SD-WAN as an MPLS replacement but, more importantly, its applicability to the broader needs of the digital business, such as cloud migration, network agility, global reach, and a mobile workforce. “Enterprises need to anticipate their future requirements if they’re to remain confident in their WAN transformation,” says Shlomo Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Cato Networks. “Thinking only about MPLS replacement leads to incremental, point solution acquisitions when confronted by digital initiatives, making their networks more complex and costly to run.” Survey Findings Capture Enterprise Confidence in Their Networks Before and After Digital Transformation We asked respondents about the state of digital transformation within their organizations and how it affected their confidence in their networks to support it. We captured their reactions across four characteristics – agility, security, performance, and management and operations. By comparing their reactions before and after digital transformation we were able to derive the change in network confidence. Results were further grouped by the respondent’s network architecture, such as MPLS, SD-WAN or SASE (secure access service edge)* Specific findings include: Failure to consider the broader implications of digital transformation during SD-WAN selection undermines network confidence.
Most enterprises move to SD-WAN primarily because of site-related issues but digital transformation involves more than connecting sites.
Only enterprises with SASE architectures showed increased network confidence post digital transformation.
Overall, respondents are optimistic about networking and security in 2020 with more than half expecting to adopt some form of SD-WAN.
To learn more about what’s in store for the networking and security in 2020, download the complete survey results here. *Survey Methodology Explained To measure network confidence, we first asked respondents about the state of digital transformation within their organizations. We then asked respondents claiming to be moderately or extremely involved in their company’s digital transformation initiative, whether they agreed (+50), were neutral (0), or disagreed (-50) with a series of positive statements reflecting their network’s characteristics — agility, security, performance, and management and operations. For example, two of these statements were: “Adding bandwidth and functionality to our existing WAN is easy and can be done within a couple of days.” and “We can provide the infrastructure to move an application to a new public cloud provider within a couple of days with necessary security, manageability, and performance.” For each for the four characteristics, we derived an average score. The network confidence score captures the change before and after digital transformation. We further segmented respondents by the type of network – MPLS, hybrid networks (MPLS and Internet-based VPN), SD-WAN, and SASE. |