Businesses are struggling to adapt their wide area networks (WAN) to their rising number of applications.

Forty-six percent of enterprises deploy more than 500 applications, up from 23% in 2020, according to Aryaka Networks. The company on Tuesday unveiled its fifth annual State of the WAN Report.

This year’s study agreed with last year’s, which found that businesses see complexity as their chief concern when it comes to their wide area networks. And that should come as no surprise. In addition to handling an increasing number of applications, the modern WAN must also serve more locations. Last year, one in five (19%) respondents reported more than 100 connected inter-regional sites. The percentage ticked up to 28% in 2021.

Aryaka surveyed than 1,350 respondents from a range of industries. They hailed from a variety of locations, most predominantly Europe (29%) and North America (23%). These are global companies, most of whom operate in more than five countries. Their job positions varied from IT/network manager to chief information officer.

Shashi Kiran, Aryaka’s chief marketing and product officer, said the study revealed customers’ preference for a cloud-first architecture. However, that doesn’t mean they’re talking about public cloud. They put more of an emphasis on the practical outcomes that cloud provides, Kiran said.

Shashi Kiran

“Is it simple enough for me to consume? Can I just I just take it as a service? Can I use it to manage change? How easy is it to deploy?” he said.

SASE Heats Up

Kiran said the study also revealed a greater awareness of the secure access service edge (SASE). He said the appeal of SASE is not the availability of a new type of network or security capability. Rather, SASE gives customers the ability to consolidate point solutions into a single platform. Say goodbye to buying five or six different technologies from five or six different vendors.

“It’s going to be the network, it’s going to be different aspects of security [and] it’s going to be cloud. Those are all things that exist today. But what SASE is promising is the convergence of a lot of these things,” Kiran said.

Futuriom’s Scott Raynovich

Scott Raynovich, founder and chief analyst at Futuriom, agreed.

“This year, the report reflects many of the same trends we are seeing at Futuriom, which include the ongoing integration of cloud-based networking services and security – otherwise known as secure access service edge (SASE) – as well as strong demand for virtualized networking solutions targeted at work from anywhere (WFA) and hybrid work environments.”

Kiran explained some of Aryaka’s key findings to Channel Partners. Scroll through the images below to see nine key takeaways.