Gartner came out with its annual SD-WAN magic quadrant last week. I agree with their placements and predict that, in the coming years, the field will narrow from six vendors to four.
An SD-WAN solution is a long-term investment that takes years to implement, so selecting a vendor can feel like placing a big bet. Gone are the days when Cisco had a monopoly, and you could take a Cisco router, have it directly connected, and work with a Juniper or other vendor’s routers. In the SD-WAN world, an SD-WAN router from one vendor cannot talk to another vendor. Even within Cisco, their Meraki SD-WAN solution cannot interconnect with their Viptela solution. SD-WAN is a proprietary technology that will never have an IETF protocol standard.
