News

Poised for Post-Pandemic Propulsion: SD-WANs and Big Data Analysis

• By David Ramel
• 07/07/2020

The general economy may be slow to recover as the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, but new research reports predict two sectors will be leading the bounce back: software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) and Big Data Analytics, a primary use case for cloud computing.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to slow SD-WAN market growth in 2020, but demand is projected to accelerate as the pandemic subsides in the following years of the forecast horizon," said research firm Dell'Oro Group today (July 7) in announcing its new SD-WAN Advanced Research Report.

Global SD-WAN technology sales are predicted to grow at double-digit rates over each of the next five years to total more $3.2 billion in 2024.

""SD-WAN offers a compelling reason for businesses to upgrade their WAN infrastructures, which is something we haven't seen in many years," said Dell'Oro Group exec Shin Umeda. "There is no doubt that COVID-19 has created a major bump in the road, but the fundamental drivers for SD-WAN adoption have not changed, and may even be enhanced if work from home solutions can be incorporated."

Two highlights of the for-pay report as listed in a news release include:

• Software accounts for the vast majority of SD-WAN revenue today and is expected to continue increasing its contribution over the next five years.
• Service provider deployments of SD-WAN for managed services are projected to grow faster than those of enterprises.

Meanwhile, Frost & Sullivan just days earlier announced new analysis titled "Post-pandemic Growth Opportunity Analysis of the Big Data Analytics Market." Under an "aspirational forecast," that BDA market is predicted to see double-digit growth in the post-pandemic COVID-19 era, provided it's contained by August 2020 and worldwide markets can recover by year's end.

With those caveats (which are questionable), the firm expects the BDA market to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.9 percent, reaching $68.09 billion by 2025, up from $14.85 billion in 2019. Hedging its bets with a conservative forecast, the firm said the market will likely reach $41.84 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 18.8 percent. That conservative forecast predicts a market slowdown and recovery period of 18 to 24 months, depending upon the availability of a vaccine.

Frost & Sullivan lists the following growth opportunities:

• Organizations' aim to reduce latency and take timely action, especially during the pandemic, will encourage vendors to focus more on intuitive searchability powered by a deeper metadata schema and machine learning.
• Increasing BDA investment in disaster preparedness, operational management, and diagnostic use cases across the globe will create exponential growth prospects for vendors.
• Big Data, cloud computing, and consumer demand for personalized and context-based services are driving the implementation of AI/ML applications.
• APAC presents continued high potential for growth with the increasing use of BDA, AI, and robotics in China, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan to contain COVID-19.