Organisations continue to adopt SD WAN in great numbers, attracted both by the technology’s potential for streamlining, simplifying and super-charging their networks and by its ability to provide a consistently excellent connectivity experience for all employees regardless of location.

In a recent Magic Quadrant™ report¹, Gartner® predicted that global demand for SD WAN will continue to flourish, set to grow at a healthy annual rate of 14% until at least 2026.

In addition, they foresee that by 2025 at least 50% of new and refresh deployments of enterprise WAN edge will utilise Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), up from less than 5% in 2020² – a technology which builds on the benefits of SD WAN with a focus on network security.

The acronym, coined by Gartner, refers to a transformational security service framework where network and cloud-based security converge. SASE’s popularity is connected to the help it provides for those needing to protect essential data spread across multiple cloud platforms. It is also proving critical when employees need to connect safely to applications from anywhere and on a range of devices.

This short video explains the technology in more detail.

Now organisations are faced with a choice between acquiring and deploying their secure SD WAN solution or turning to a managed services partner to deliver these technologies. More important than their route is ensuring that they stay on pace while leaders enjoy the benefits of new and improved approaches to secure networking. For those already on the road towards a secure SD WAN set-up, 2023 is the year to take it to the next level and take advantage of new developments. For those stalling, it’s time to take action.

What you need to know about secure SD WAN in 2023

1. Take your security up a gear

Over the next 12 months, organisations will be confronting several challenges that have a bearing on their approach to networks and the security of those networks. Analyst firm IDC calls these challenges ‘storms of disruption’. They include strong economic headwinds and geopolitical and social forces combining to throw plans for digital transformation, already affected by COVID, further off course.

In addition to these macroeconomic factors, IT departments are battling a worldwide shortage of skills while coping with an increasingly fluid network perimeter. Cybersecurity risks are at an all-time high thanks to rampant and often state-sponsored threats, including DDoS attacks and ransomware demands.

It’s time to ask ourselves, what’s the cost of not having a security framework which covers every part of a network? In monetary terms, IBM stated the average data breach cost in 2022 was $4.35 million. 

 In addition, 60% saw an increase in the price of their products and services due to the breach. But it’s more than that: it’s loss of productivity, cost of response or recovery, reputation impact, fines and judgements.

Secure SD WAN is essential in helping CIOs cope in this uncertain and troubled climate and protecting the digital infrastructure that will power them forward. But this won’t happen without properly fuelling it. Enterprises with a strong existing commitment to SD WAN and SASE adoption cannot afford to rely on historical investments.

SD WAN will need to evolve and develop to offer a more prosperous and integrated set of capabilities. We will need to see networking and security solutions converge more profoundly to help organisations meet regulatory and ESG responsibilities, enable their workforces to increase their productivity and allow them to compete better in the digital economy.

Colt’s latest SASE Gateway solution, an integrated SASE technology, combines SD WAN and secure service edge (SSE) features. Designed for global enterprises, the new solution is based on Versa SASE and Versa Secure Web Gateway, offers organisations protection from malware and threats, instant insight for policy management, and helps reduce end-user friction when accessing cloud-based applications securely.

Watch Colt & Versa experts address how to unify connectivity and security for an evolving workforce below:

You can learn more about our partnership with Versa by watching a live webinar recording, or read more about the latest cybersecurity protection available in our DDoS whitepaper.

2. Power your users with secure SD WAN

There are other ways in which secure SD WAN will need to adapt to meet new requirements. When SD WAN started being seriously adopted around six years ago, it was envisaged as a solution relevant mainly for IT teams and network managers struggling with the complexity and expense of legacy investments, promising to optimise traffic across MPLS and IP-based connections. Employees at the sharp end of the business, in head or branch offices or out in the field, would not have been on the immediate agenda.

Priorities have shifted. With the next wave of adoption, augmenting and improving the user experience will be paramount. A prime objective will be seamless and secure access to essential applications in the cloud and ensuring that every worker can get what they need regardless of geography or device. Technology is coming out of the data centre and improving lives everywhere, from the shop floor to the home office. The network edge is taking that power from the heart of the business and taking it closer to the users.

The next generation of secure SD WAN will provide the most direct path to cloud-based applications. At the same time, a SASE-based upgrade will deliver security capabilities such as application-themed firewalls, intrusion prevention, URL filtering and other unified threat management capabilities, helping organisations move to a decentralised security model. Having better visibility into network and application-level traffic will help with application prioritisation to improve end-user experiences.

The future of SASE is a Zero Trust security posture. Replacing the implicit trust of legacy networking models with continuously assessed adaptive risk and trust levels based on identity, essential for the quality of experience of remote workers. As-a-service architectures will deliver highly performant and resilient services that dynamically adapt to end-user demands.

We’re at the beginning of a much more converged approach to using SD WAN with SASE. But this will pressure CIOs to find a way to manage complexity, especially where solutions from multiple vendors are being juggled.

Our 2022 Cloud Report explored many of these themes; you can download it to learn how else CIOs tackled common cloud-based, application-centric obstacles.

3. Vendor management matters

In a recent survey analysing the SD WAN & SASE environment, the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) found the main challenge for deployment was the sheer complexity of managing and operating a multi-vendor solution. There were also issues with the integration of security options and the definition of end-to-end SLAs. A secure SD WAN architecture offered additional headaches around enforcing consistent security in complex environments.

Building an engine that truly powers your business requires close collaboration from all partners. CIOs and network managers need to shift this complexity so they can focus on what they do best – using technology to create value for their organisation.

With secure SD WAN, it is great to have a choice of ways to deploy and benefit. But you don’t want the job of managing those choices to overwhelm the business objectives that drove you to adopt them in the first place. Instead, working with a single point of contact and leading partner can take this complexity away, allowing you to sit back and let them design, deploy and manage your secure SD WAN solution.

We offer bespoke, one-to-one consultations hosted by a team of experts in our Innovation Workshops Book one now.

What’s next for secure SD WAN?

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are now being incorporated into SD WAN to create a host of next-gen benefits.

Get maximum value out of your network

With AI and ML, SD WAN will offer better-centralised management, allowing network managers to get maximum value out of network resources. They will be able to fine-tune traffic routing, application performance and security all from one platform. IT departments can become more reactive to employee needs and business imperatives.

Know your network, easily

The next generation of SD WAN and SASE will enable deeper insights into your network and a richer understanding of network and application performance. The ability to see what is happening at the application level in more detail will be vital in helping resolve issues as they develop and not after they appear in the rear-view mirror.

Predict and respond

With smarter analytics, SD WAN will be capable of issuing intelligent alerts and recommendations for optimal network operation. It can automatically assess different events’ impact on the network, application performance, and security. Once you can troubleshoot problems before they become serious, you will be less vulnerable to security risks.

Clear, automated analytics

Automated statistical analysis will render capacity planning more straightforward. It will make it easier to connect a complex mix of endpoints, including remote branch offices, data centres, public cloud platforms and SaaS applications – basically, all the capabilities that are needed to power a modern, digitally transformed business.

You can read more about our secure SD WAN partnership with IBM, where we created an intelligent manufacturing solution in our Industry 4.0 Lab in the UK.

Power your business with one of Colt’s secure SD WAN solutions and make 2023 the year you charge ahead of the competition. Protect your data, equip your staff and let Colt construct a safe digital environment that enables your business to thrive.

Colt strives to transform the way the world works through the power of connectivity. The Colt IQ Network connects 1,000+ data centres across Europe, Asia and North America’s largest business hubs, with over 31,000 on-net buildings and growing.

Contact us today and super-charge your secure SD WAN.

Check your connectivity

[1]  Gartner, Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN, Jonathan Forest, Naresh Singh, Andrew Lerner, Karen Brown, 12 September 2022
[2] Gartner, “Market Insight: CSPs Must Augment Managed SD-WAN Services With Managed SASE”, Gaspar Valdivia, 18 May 2022
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.