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Virtualization kingpin VMware continues to dominate the software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) space, according to the latest Magic Quadrant report from research firm Gartner.
“We expect this vendor to make continued investments in delivering services from its cloud gateways, integrating with home Wi-Fi solutions, supporting zero trust at the edge and improving throughput offerings,” Gartner said in its new “Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN” report, which for the fifth straight year placed VMware in the “Leaders” section of the report, which categorizes vendors into four sections — also including Visionaries, Niche Players and Challengers — and ranks them on axes for “Ability to Execute” and “Completeness of Vision.”
In fact, VMware is tied with Palo Alto Networks atop the vision axis, while it’s behind only Fortinet on the execution axis.
“Its offering is VMware SD-WAN, which includes edge appliances, optional gateway points of presence (POPs) and a cloud-based orchestrator,” Gartner said. “VMware also offers optional SASE cloud security capabilities, of which VMware SD-WAN is a part. The vendor’s operations are global, and it serves clients of all sizes and in all vertical industries. VMware is based in California, and Gartner estimates that it has more than 17,000 SD-WAN customers.”
VMware acknowledged its five-year reign of Magic Quadrant SD-WAN prowess in a Sept. 15 blog post, in which it discussed how enterprises are digitally transforming to support their remote workforces.
“Enterprises are modernizing their businesses to increase agility and remain competitive in today’s market by transforming applications, adopting cloud or SaaS, and allowing users to access these applications from the office, home, or anywhere,” VMware said. “What is their goal? Users must have the same application experience regardless of whether they are inside or outside the office; ensure security of their network, applications, and data; and support the next generation of applications demanded by enterprise’s business lines.”
As for the market in general, Gartner described it thusly: “SD-WAN products replace traditional branch routers. They provide dynamic path selection, based on business or application policy, centralized policy and management of appliances, virtual private network (VPN), and zero-touch configuration. SD-WAN products are WAN transport-/carrier-agnostic, and create secure paths across WAN connections. SD-WAN products can be hardware-/software-based, managed directly by enterprises or embedded in a managed service offering.”
The research firm based its report on three strategic planning assumptions:
As far as future trends of the SD-WAN market, Gartner listed:
While Gartner usually charges for its research, Magic Quadrant reports are typically available from several covered vendors in licensed-for-distribution editions that can be found with a quick web search.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.
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