IHS Markit: VMware acquires top SD-WAN vendor VeloCloud; 3Q17 SD-WAN revenue reaches $116M

Highlights:

SD-WAN (appliance + control and management software) revenue reached $116M in 3Q17, up 18% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) and up 2.8x year-over-year (YoY). VeloCloud led the SD-WAN market with 22% share of 3Q17 revenue, Aryaka was in second place with 18%.  Silver Peak rounded out the top 3 with 12%, according to the DC Network Equipment market tracker early edition from IHS Markit.

“The majority of SD-WAN solutions at first focused on virtualizing the WAN connection problem bringing automation, reliability, and agility to the enterprise WAN using overlays. Current use cases include direct connect for branch offices to the Internet and increased reliability through automated fail-over for a better user experience,” said Cliff Grossner, Ph.D., Senior Research Director and Advisor for the Cloud and Data Center Research Practice at IHS Markit.

Worldwide SD-WAN revenue (US$M)-3Q-2017:

VeloCloud

$26.0

Aryaka

$21.3

Silver Peak

$14.1

Viptela

$9.5

InfoVista

$4.4

Citrix

$4.4

Talari

$4.1

TELoIP

$3.9

FatPipe

$3.8

Cisco

$3.1

Huawei

$2.8

CloudGenix

$2.5

Riverbed

$1.7

ZTE

$0.6

Other

$14.2

Total SD-WAN

$116.2

Source: IHS-Markit

“With the WAN connectivity problem well understood and solutions ramping in deployments, SD-WAN vendors are beginning to offer additional services such as WAN optimization and virtual firewall. The next important challenge for SD-WAN vendors to solve is providing connectivity with SLAs and security for the multi-cloud,” said Cliff Grossner.

More Market Highlights:

·         3Q17 ADC revenue increased 5% from 2Q17 and decreased 5% from 3Q16

·         Virtual ADC appliances stood at 28% of 3Q17 ADC revenue

·         F5 garnered 45% ADC market share in 3Q17 with revenue down 4% YoY. Citrix had the #2 spot with 29% of revenue, and A10 (8%) rounded out the top 3 market share spots.

Data Center Network Equipment Report Synopsis:

The IHS Markit Data Center Network Equipment market tracker is part of the Data Center Networks Intelligence Service and provides quarterly worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, forecasts through 2021, analysis and trends for (1) data center Ethernet switches by category [purpose built, bare metal, blade and general purpose], port speed [1/10/25/40/50/100/200/400GE] and market segment [enterprise, telco and cloud service provider], (2) application delivery controllers by category [hardware-based appliance, virtual appliance],  and (3) software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) [appliances and control and management software]. Vendors tracked include A10, ALE, Arista, Array Networks, Aryaka, Barracuda, Cisco, Citrix, CloudGenix, Dell, F5, FatPipe, HPE, Huawei, InfoVista, Juniper, KEMP, Radware, Riverbed, Silver Peak, Talari, TELoIP, VeloCloud, Viptela, ZTE and others.

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From a Nov 15, 2017 press release:

According to the IHS Markit Data Center and Enterprise SDN Hardware and Software Biannual Market Tracker, SD-WAN is currently a small market, totaling just $137 million worldwide in the first half of 2017 (H1 2017). However, global SD-WAN hardware and software revenue is forecast to reach $3.3 billion by 2021 as service providers partner with SD-WAN vendors to deploy overlay solutions — and as virtual network function (VNF)–based solutions become more closely integrated with carrier operations support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS).

“Currently, the majority of SD-WAN revenue is from appliances, with early deployments focused on rolling out devices at branch offices,” Grossner said. “Moving forward, we expect a larger portion of SD-WAN revenue to come from control and management software as users increasingly adopt application visibility and analytics services.”

More highlights from the IHS Markit data center and enterprise SDN report:

  • Globally, data center and enterprise software-defined networking (SDN) revenue for in-use SDN-capable Ethernet switches, SDN controllers and SD-WAN increased 5.4 percent in H1 2017 from H2 2016, to $1.93 billion
  • Based on in-use SDN revenue, Cisco was the number-one market share leader in the SDN market in H1 2017, followed by Arista, White Box, VMware and Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • Looking at the individual SDN categories in H1 2017, White Box was the frontrunner in bare metal switch revenue, VMware led the SDN controller market segment, Dell held 45 percent of branded bare metal switch revenue and Hewlett Packard Enterprise had the largest share of total SDN-capable (in-use and not-in-use) branded Ethernet switch ports

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Editor’s Notes:

We’ve repeatedly pounded the table that there are no standards for SD-WANs, despite efforts by MEF [1].   That implies single vendor SD WAN with vendor lock-in and no interoperability between SD-WANs from different vendors.

Note 1.  MEF says it will standardize the managed services that SD-WAN network operators deliver, by developing open APIs, along with common terminology and components. This effort builds on MEF’s Lifecycle Service Orchestration effort.  Please refer to this MEF document.

Note 2.  Gartner’s definition of SD-WAN

Image result for pic of SD WAN

More from Gartner on SD-WANs:

Enterprise network leaders face enormous challenges adapting and changing their managed WAN services to meet constantly changing business needs for new applications, new offices, more users, cloud services and digital business. Based on hundreds of client inquiries and recent Research Circle surveys, a key obstacle is that traditional network services are too slow in meeting these needs, and network leaders need alternative solutions that can meet their evolving needs faster. Compared to traditional WAN services, managed SD-WAN services (including various WAN connectivity services) are emerging with promises of greater agility, flexibility, control and cost-efficiency.

Gartner recommends that network leaders seeking managed WAN services use end-to-end managed SD-WAN and connectivity services to create agile and cost-effective managed WAN services. However, they must avoid buying into overinflated expectations created by the market hype that ignores the limitations of current services. To avoid the inevitable disappointment that follows unfulfilled expectations, network leaders should outline their service requirements, and use these to define evaluation criteria for a balanced analysis of service benefits and limitations.’

Figure 1. Identify an Acceptable Balance Between the Benefits and Limitations of Managed SD-WAN

Enlarge Image

Source: Gartner (December 2017)

Enterprise network leaders face enormous challenges adapting and changing their managed WAN services to meet constantly changing business needs for new applications, new offices, more users, cloud services and digital business. Based on hundreds of client inquiries and recent Research Circle surveys, a key obstacle is that traditional network services are too slow in meeting these needs, and network leaders need alternative solutions that can meet their evolving needs faster. Compared to traditional WAN services, managed SD-WAN services (including various WAN connectivity services) are emerging with promises of greater agility, flexibility, control and cost-efficiency.

Gartner recommends that network leaders seeking managed WAN services use end-to-end managed SD-WAN and connectivity services to create agile and cost-effective managed WAN services. However, they must avoid buying into overinflated expectations created by the market hype that ignores the limitations of current services. To avoid the inevitable disappointment that follows unfulfilled expectations, network leaders should outline their service requirements, and use these to define evaluation criteria for a balanced analysis of service benefits and limitations.’

Figure 1. Identify an Acceptable Balance Between the Benefits and Limitations of Managed SD-WAN

Enlarge Image

Source: Gartner (December 2017)

Current WAN services take too long to roll out and are too difficult to relocate or terminate, and network leaders are looking for ways to improve this. Network leaders see SD-WAN as a new opportunity to create more agile branch office connectivity due to appliances’ support of “zero-touch-configuration.” Vendors are fueling these expectations with reports of very fast site rollout with reports of 20 to 30 sites deployed overnight, compared to six to 10 sites per week for a traditional managed router service. However, SD-WAN does not change fundamental limitations of connectivity services, for example:

  • Fast site deployments are only available for 4G/LTE access services or in cases where the provider already has a wired access service to the building (although in many cases these still require one to two weeks to provision).
  • Network leaders who need new wired access services still need to plan for 14 to 90 days (or longer) from order to provisioning.
  • All wired branch office connections, private or public, still require network leaders to sign a contract of fixed duration, making it a problem for network leaders to move or terminate a site without financial penalties.

Network leaders who need new WAN sites deployed with short notice should request managed SD-WAN with embedded LTE services. While many providers do not yet offer this service, there are providers in select countries that courier SD-WAN appliances with LTE embedded to customer sites instead of sending a technician. The best-case scenario is only six hours from order placement to on-site delivery of the appliance. Combined with self-service, where the enterprise plugs in the SD-WAN appliance to the LAN and powers up the device, the site can be operational within a day in the best case. However, network leaders who do not want their office staff to plug in the appliance need to plan for up to a week for a technician to be on-site, depending on location.

However, besides expense, the performance limitations of 4G/LTE include lower bandwidth than fiber, lack of geographic coverage and lack of QoS. Also, most of these services are based on using the internet as backhaul to the provider’s internet gateway. This means that, for larger sites and critical applications, network leaders should only employ 4G/LTE connectivity as an interim primary connection until a fiber connection has been deployed.

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Because of the performance issues that still plague the internet in most parts of the world, the majority of enterprises are not replacing MPLS with internet services. Instead, based on client inquiries, Gartner estimates that around 60% of global WANs use both internet and MPLS in concert in a hybrid WAN that sends critical application traffic over the MPLS and everything else over the internet.

Enterprise experience has shown that for a global managed hybrid WAN, network planners can obtain at least 30% expense savings compared to traditional managed WAN (see “Cloud Adoption Is Driving Hybrid WAN Architectures” ). Network planners that want to replace their global MPLS with internet should progress selectively, and choose a few sites in areas where the internet is most likely to be of good quality. For these sites, demand a two- to four-month pilot as a condition of signing a new WAN contract. Remember that all internet providers and services are not the same. Use only a select few and do not disaggregate internet providers, as WAN and application performance will suffer.

 

 

2 thoughts on “IHS Markit: VMware acquires top SD-WAN vendor VeloCloud; 3Q17 SD-WAN revenue reaches $116M

  1. From Network World:
    Aryaka the fastest-growing SD-WAN vendor
    The number two vendor is currently Aryaka at $21 million (18 percent of share). Now that VeloCloud has been acquired, Aryaka becomes the largest independent SD-WAN vendor with more revenue than many of the established vendors, such as Cisco, Citrix, Silver-Peak, Riverbed and Viptela (acquired by Cisco).

    Aryaka’s differentiator is that it has a global, cloud-native, private network-based SD-WAN that enables it to deliver significantly better application performance over long distances than other suppliers that use internet links. Proof of this is that Aryaka will commit to SLAs where many SD-WAN providers will not, as broadband is typically “best effort.”
    Aryaka also delivers SD-WAN as a service, which appeals to global organizations that want to consume SD-WAN instead of having to contract with possibly hundreds of broadband providers. The managed service approach lets its customers purchase the network services similar to the way it buys cloud services.

    Rather than being acquired, Aryaka has its sights set on an IPO and remaining an independent vendor. It has over 700 global enterprise customers, and based on the IHS numbers, it is the fastest-growing SD-WAN vendor.

    Silver-Peak a strong contender
    The number three vendor — and the only other one over $10 million in revenue — is Silver-Peak at $14 million, which equates to about 12 percent market share. The vendor is best known as a WAN optimization vendor and was the first vendor in this class to aggressively pursue an SD-WAN strategy. At the end of this quarter, Silver-Peak had more than 500 customers, many of which were customers of its WAN optimization product.

    In his report, Grossner indicates that the revenue for Silver-Peak includes its Boost product, its WAN optimization module for EdgeConnect, which he estimates is about 25 percent of revenue. This may seem to artificially inflate Silver-Peak’s numbers, but it’s been my thesis that WAN optimization should be part of an SD-WAN deployment. Silver-Peak has also been attacking the traditional router market, which gives it another entry point.

    Keeping an eye on Viptela
    The other vendor worth noting is Viptela, whose revenue for the quarter was $9.5 million, and when combined with Cisco’s $3.1 million, will push it over the $10 millionmark. The acquisition has created a tremendous amount of confusion as to whether Viptela means Cisco will kill off iWAN. From my conversations with Cisco, I can definitively say that iWAN and Viptela will eventually come together, but Cisco needs to provide more clarity here to clear up the confusion.

    There is certainly a plethora of options available to buyers today, with no two vendors being alike. For businesses deciding on an SD-WAN solution, don’t test potential solutions on price or technical specs. Instead, evaluate the solutions on what matters — application performance — because that’s what will impact the business the most.

    https://www.networkworld.com/article/3241407/sd-wan/velocloud-and-aryaka-in-a-two-horse-race-for-sd-wan-leadership.html

  2. At IHS Markit we are very careful to check all our market share #s from various dimensions bringing together data shared under NDA by vendors which we validate through end user, supply chain and partner interviews and correlate with public data sources to obtain data we feed into custom models we create for each vendor we track. These models reflect the nature of each vendor’s product, go to market model and our long term developed understanding of the underlying physics for how markets evolve.

    Specific to SD-WAN we apply the 4 principles when estimating a vendor and deciding to include them in our reporting:

    1) Does the vendor own the technology

    2) Does the technology meet our definition – Software-defined enterprise WAN: provides a virtual WAN with automated load balancing of application traffic across multiple physical WAN links; includes a centralized management and control plane; does not include WAN connectivity

    3) We are business model agnostic, and work to create a fair comparison ( we have worked with several vendors to create customized models for them)

    4) We count revenue to the vendor only, not other places in the supply chain

    Now to the specifics:

    1) Vendors selling WAN Optimization and claiming SD-WAN

    We have over a 10 year history of tracking the WAN optimization market and have a clear picture of each vendor’s WAN optimization revenue. We work closely with all vendors to vet revenue we count is SD-WAN. In the case that WAN optimization is sold as an add on feature to an SD-WAN deployment we include that revenue treating all vendors equally.

    2) Several of the vendors we track had products that meet our definition of SD-WAN before the term SD-WAN was defined, since they meet our definition we include them. It would be arbitrary to include only vendors that developed SD-WAN after the hype began and we do not operate in that fashion.

    3) We must be careful in making false assumptions when reading an SEC filing in absence of a discussion with the proper stakeholders. VeloCloud had 3 elements to its business 1) SaaS subscriptions 2) perpetual software license revenue which was a capex play and 3) appliance revenue also capex. The $44M is the “forward” contract value on recurring revenue from the SaaS part of its business that VeloCloud brought with it for 2018 and beyond. It would of course reflect backwards on the SaaS portion of the business for 2017 and 2016. We can use the $44M in contract revenue as an indicator of the SaaS business, but not the other elements.

    In summary, our methodology is sound and we stand by our in depth analysis. For those of you that are not aware, IHS Market was was chosen as the #1 most influential tech analyst firms in 2018 by enterprise management 360.
    https://www.em360tech.com/tech-news/top-ten/top-10-tech-analyst-firms/

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