The Costs Conversation

SD-WAN emerged several years ago with much fanfare about how it would save customers money by allowing them to move from beefy MPLS networks onto public internet.

“While cost reduction is not the most important factor in using SD-WAN and the cost benefit over MPLS in major markets can be slim, it will become more pressing over the coming years,” the report authors wrote. “Opportunities to mitigate cost will grow as new competitive underlay networks are rolled out.”

While Garson noted that dual DIA circuits can replace an organization’s most expensive MPLS circuits, he said overall cost savings aren’t necessarily a given with SD-WAN.

“While initially, people look at cost reduction as an SD-WAN driver, what they find it that growing bandwidth requirements offset the cost savings expected, because a 10 Mbps MPLS circuit might be replaced by a single or dual 100 Mbps DIA circuit,” Garson said.