Has SD-WAN Come of Age for SMEs During the Pandemic?

Salim Khouri

As businesses continue to navigate the turbulent waters of a global pandemic, their journey to the cloud has accelerated dramatically. Not only that, but the way they adopt cloud solutions has evolved, with a much stronger focus on flexible working, data security and the overall online experience offered to employees. Perhaps this is why a significant majority of small- to medium-sized businesses are now turning to software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) to streamline, secure and optimize their online infrastructure.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how SD-WAN works, how its roll out has been impacted by the pandemic and the increasingly pivotal role it’s going to play in helping SMEs stay agile and resilient in a post-pandemic landscape.

Despite an initial slowdown of SD-WAN deployments near the beginning of the pandemic, most likely due to the uncertainty surrounding lockdowns and the so-called ‘new normal,’ the technology appears to have bounced back even stronger as businesses begin to chart their course forward. According to some sources, SD-WAN technology is expected to grow from $1.9 billion in 2020 to a staggering $8.4 billion by 2025; that’s a CAGR of 34.5% and the strongest indication yet that SD-WAN solutions are most certainly central to strategies for post-pandemic success.

So why has SD-WAN become such an important piece of the cloud transformation jigsaw? And why are businesses more likely than ever to need the support of technology partners as they embrace it? Before we look at the advantages of SD-WAN for SMEs, let’s first assess the cloud landscape and the increased pressure on enterprises to migrate.

The Need for Rapid Cloud Transformation

For many, the pandemic is viewed as a catalyst for transformation, spurring companies to embrace new technologies and enhance their operations. In reality, the pressure put on businesses to accelerate the pace of digital change within their organisations might have come with some negative consequences.

In something McKinsey refers to as “The Quickening,” a number of SMEs had to fit a decade’s worth of digital transformation into the space of around 90 days to stay operational during the start of the pandemic. Even Microsoft admitted it had to leap forward by around two years in the space of two months to adjust to the new working landscape. But with high pressure placed on businesses to embrace the cloud and facilitate secure remote working, many have overlooked how they operate in the cloud, and instead just focused on the migration itself. In a world where the online experience offered to employees can make the difference between a happy, productive workforce and one that feels hamstrung and frustrated, SD-WAN can make all the difference. Now, more than ever, businesses of all shapes and sizes need the support of third-party technology partners to ensure their journey to the cloud is as secure as it is rapid.

When Cloud Migration Isn’t Enough

There was once a time where simply migrating to the cloud was enough for businesses to put a tick in the digital transformation box. That time was short-lived and has long since passed. Today’s companies need to demonstrate that …