IHS TECHNOLOGY SEPTEMBER 2016

Taking Back Control of Your

Network With SD-LAN

Matthias Machowinski, Senior Research Director, Enterprise Networks and Video

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Access Networks Are Under Pressure ............................................................ 3

Challenge #1: More Users ................................................................................ 3

Challenge #2: More Devices ............................................................................. 2

Challenge #3: Cloud Applications ................................................................... 3

Rethinking Network Architectures With SDN ................................................. 4

SDN Deployment Drivers .................................................................................. 4

Bottom Line ....................................................................................................... 5

To Learn More ................................................................................................... 6

LIST OF EXHIBITS

Exhibit 1: Network Users ................................................................................... 3

Exhibit 2: Devices Connected to LAN and WLAN ........................................... 2

Exhibit 3: SaaS Service Adoption ..................................................................... 3

Exhibit 4: SDN’s Primary Goal: Increased Automation ................................... 4

Exhibit 5: SDN Deployment Drivers .................................................................. 5

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Taking Back Control of Your Network With SD-LAN

Access Networks Are Under Pressure

The pace of change in enterprise access networks is accelerating as companies extend access to more users, and as users embrace new types of devices, discover new applications, and upgrade their devices to the latest technologies. Networks that were once static with known users, devices, and capabilities have become dynamic and unpredictable. This presents a major challenge to network administrators, who are tasked with running networks that perform under stress and must now cope with rapid technology cycles.

Challenge #1: More Users

Using a panel of qualified IT decision-makers, we conducted a web survey in September 2015 with 182 organizations that have a wireless LAN and at least 101 employees. Respondents to this survey average almost 3,000 unique network users per month, and they expect their user population to grow by 8% per year over the next two years. User growth is driven to a large extent by guest access, which accounts for only 18% of the user population today but grows to 23% by 2017. Many organizations view guest access as a differentiator to attract new customers and as a tool for customer analytics and promotions. Internally, organizations are still in the process of extending network access to more of their employees—only half of all employees (48%) are also network users.

Exhibit 1: Network Users

© 2015 IHS, Wireless LAN Strategies and Vendor Leadership North American Enterprise Survey, October 2015

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Taking Back Control of Your Network With SD-LAN

Challenge #2: More Devices

From the same survey, we learned that along with more users come more devices, but device growth is outpacing user growth, as users access the network from a growing variety of devices and as companies leverage the power of the Internet of Things (IoT). On average, respondent organizations have almost 3,000 network-connected devices installed today and expect this number to grow by 20% by 2017. There is growth in almost all types of devices through 2017, but the real growth story is in mobility and IoT applications:

Mobile devices, which account for 40% of devices today, will grow to 43% by September 2017. This modest change masks a significant underlying trend: almost two out of three new devices will be mobile, which illustrates just how important mobility, and by extension wireless networks, have become in network planning. Wearables are growing 53% by 2017, tablets by 50%, voice over WLAN (VoWLAN) handsets by 29%, laptops and handheld/rugged computers by 26%, and smartphones by 22%.

IoT (e.g., cameras, TVs, and sensors) is still a niche application, but is showing strong growth (37% by 2017) and accounts for 8% of all network-connected devices by 2017.

Exhibit 2: Devices Connected to LAN and WLAN

© 2015 IHS, Wireless LAN Strategies and Vendor Leadership North American Enterprise Survey, October 2015

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Taking Back Control of Your Network With SD-LAN

Challenge #3: Cloud Applications

Cloud adoption is happening in two ways: 1) From the ground up by users who are using cloud applications because they address their

specific information and communication needs.

2) Top down by enterprise IT departments that are migrating applications to the cloud to improve business agility and reap cost savings. Agility means enterprises can quickly introduce new applications and grow or shrink capacity to fit business needs. Upfront capex can be shifted to as-needed opex by using off-premises cloud services—shifting from investments in equipment and staff to leveraging a cloud service provider’s (CSP’s) infrastructure, supported by highly skilled experts.

Cloud applications present a new challenge to network managers, because they require connectivity that’s ubiquitous, high performing, and always available. Without consistent and reliable network access, cloud applications become unusable. Using a panel of qualified IT decision-makers, we conducted a web survey in May through June 2015 with 158 North American organizations that have at least 101 employees and subscribe to off-premises cloud services. We found that e-mail is currently the most used software-as-a-service (SaaS), with collaboration and customer relationship management (CRM) services close behind. SaaS adoption is increasing for core enterprise applications such as business analytics (BA), virtual desktops and security.

Exhibit 3: SaaS Service Adoption

© 2015 IHS, Cloud Service Strategies North American Enterprise Survey, July 2015

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Taking Back Control of Your Network With SD-LAN

Rethinking Network Architectures With SDN

The rapid changes occurring in access networks mean that traditional methods to provide users with a quality experience, such as statically assigned priorities (QoS), are no longer effective. It becomes necessary for the network to recognize individual application traffic flows and adjust priority to match the dynamic nature of application traffic in a resource-constrained world. Software-defined networking, or SDN, has captured the attention of the marketplace because it has the potential to enable automation of the network based on new forms of network programmability. The architecture and taxonomy of SDN includes a data forwarding plane (physical and virtual), a control plane, and network-aware applications. Inherent to SDNs are a method to abstract and separate the switch control plane from the data plane. This abstraction has the potential to drive new efficiencies, enable more scalable methods for defining virtual networks, and simplify support for multi-tenancy. SDNs include a method (APIs, PKIs, specialized protocols such as OpenFlow) that can be used by applications and external controllers to request network state information or services. SDN drives a new high-level architecture for networks and applications and enables coordination between applications and the network, something that does not occur in networks today.

Exhibit 4: SDN’s Primary Goal: Increased Automation

© 2015 IHS, Data Center and Enterprise SDN Hardware and Software, May 2016

SDN Deployment Drivers

Using a panel of qualified IT decision-makers, we conducted a web survey in February 2015 with 198 North American organizations that have at least 101 employees. Respondents must have detailed knowledge of and influence in their organizations’ SDN strategies, plans, and purchase decisions. Respondents rated factors in deploying an SDN solution as either not a driver, somewhat of a driver, or a strong driver. Top drivers included security (74% of respondents), improving management capabilities (73%), and improving application performance (73%).

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Taking Back Control of Your Network With SD-LAN

© 2015 IHS, Data Center SDN Strategies North American Enterprise Survey, Feb. 2015

SDN offers a way to enforce security policies at any point in the network rather than backhauling traffic to a security appliance. Security vendors are on the forefront of this, with a head start on the other network application vendors. Most had hypervisor-aware solutions years ago and started building SDN-capable solutions as soon as SDN started to emerge, as it generally requires just minor tweaks to the interfaces built for the hypervisors. Some key SDN controller vendors are also security technology/appliance vendors that came out of the gate with SDN solutions that integrated controllers and virtual appliances. Improving management capability helps make operations more efficient. The results underscore the frustration respondents have with network management, and they’re looking at SDN to help them provide an overall management and operational framework that runs across multivendor equipment. There is opportunity for SDN to help improve application performance with automated adjustment of network QoS. SDN offers the possibility of comprehensive and fine-grained understanding of application flows and the ability to adjust treatment of traffic at all points in the network. Reducing capex was initially thought to be one of the top benefits of SDN. However, to the enterprises evaluating or implementing SDN by 2017, it is the lowest driver—but 55% of respondents consider it a driver for SDN.

Exhibit 2: SDN Deployment Drivers

Bottom Line

Today’s access networks are dynamic and unpredictable as users, devices, and applications change constantly, making them difficult to manage and ensure application performance. SD-LAN introduces programmability to networks, allowing them to morph as conditions change. Key benefits include centralized control automation and the ability of applications to interact directly with the network. Organizations are deploying SDN to improve security, application performance, and simplify network management.

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Taking Back Control of Your Network With SD-LAN

Report Author

Matthias Machowinski Senior Research Director, Enterprise Networks and Video IHS Markit Technology matthias.machowinski@ihsmarkit.com +1 617.914.0240 Twitter: @machowinski

To Learn More

Join us for “Taking Back Control of Your Network With SD-LAN,” a

free webinar presented by IHS Markit and Aerohive: LIVE: Wednesday, September 28, 2016 8:00 am PT / 11:00 am ET / 15:00 UTC REPLAY: Watch on-demand any time Both the live event and replay can be accessed at: http://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1249962/E1B2F9EA8B5774529F1F913CDBAEF686

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