The Stage is Set…
One thing is clear: things will never be the same again. The world has changed in so many ways over the last 12 months that nobody (except a few epidemiologists perhaps) could have anticipated it only a year ago. But is it all bad?
Admittedly, when everyone began working from home almost overnight, this created a certain amount of chaos, especially in networking. There was suddenly a huge and urgent demand for reliable and secure connectivity to offices, colleagues, and cloud-based tools, and networking teams had a hard time catching up. But, what started as a crisis actually triggered a networking revolution.
Reliable, secure and flexible enterprise connectivity, no matter where your users are… Sounds a lot like a case for SD-WAN and its younger cousin SASE, doesn’t it? But, everything was not as easy as just spotting the opportunity and adding new networking services. For many enterprises, new projects were just out of the question until stability returned. Some projects that were already underway came to a temporary halt as companies had to make new risk assessments due to the pandemic. In some cases, engineers could not access their labs to do tests and PoCs. This meant that while the need was recognized, not everyone could implement the changes.
So here we are at the end of the year with a vaccine in sight and a pent-up need for enterprise networks to adapt to the hybrid workplace. Does that mean everyone will just jump on the first SD-WAN or SASE offer they come across? I do not think so. One thing enterprises and service providers have learnt is that the future is uncertain. They will think twice before they invest in new technology, and they will make sure their investments do not become obsolete because something happens. They will look for a flexible and agile foundation for their networks, one that lets them adapt to changes in an uncertain world. The stage is set for uCPE.
But first things first! My first prediction:
#1: SASE WILL BECOME THE 2021 MUST-HAVE
I am not the only one who thinks this. According to Gartner, while SASE is in the early stages of market development, it is being actively marketed by the vendor community. By 2024, at least 40% of enterprises will have explicit SASE adoption strategies.
This year, for example, we saw SASE take over the hype from SD-WAN. Next year, I think we will start to see companies rebranding their products as SASE offerings, and themselves as SASE providers - just like any company with a networking product seemed to rebrand itself as an SD-WAN vendor a couple of years ago. But, in accordance with Gartner’s predictions, we will have to wait a little longer before we see fully-fledged SASE offerings. In the meantime, vendors will do their best to come as close as possible. Some will take a competitive approach to SD-WAN while others, like Zscaler, choose to embrace the existing SD-WAN infrastructure.
While SD-WAN vendors were the target of several acquisitions in 2020 (Juniper’s acquisition of 128T being a notable one), we will now see companies interested in building SASE capabilities, with the end goal to offer a complete SASE stack.
Confused about how, when and where to buy in on SASE? You are not alone. There is still much to be done before Gartner’s SASE vision becomes mainstream. But one thing is certain, the move to SASE will require a flexible on-premises platform. Which leads me to my second prediction.
#2: UCPE WILL CROSS THE CHASM TO BECOME A MAINSTREAM TECHNOLOGY FOR ENTERPRISE NETWORKING
Chris Silberberg at Omdia agrees with me. He predicts that uCPE hardware revenue will triple next year.
Tomas Hedqvist,
Director,
Product Marketing,
Enea
Growth will be driven largely by SD-WAN and SASE, as service providers and enterprises discover how much easier and cheaper it is to run these architectures with uCPE. Early SASE implementations will also benefit from uCPE, using it to facilitate the evolution of premise-based clients.
However, I believe we will also start to see some real progress in other use cases as well over the next 12 months. When the basic need of securely connecting users and sites to each other and to the cloud is satisfied, the next step will be to use the presence at the customer premise to generate more business by offering additional edge services, leading me to my third prediction.
#3: A WIDER ADOPTION OF UCPE WILL PUSH NEW FUNCTIONALITIES TO THE EDGE AND TO THE CUSTOMER PREMISES
IoT will be a driving use case to add, for example, private 4G LTE or 5G networks, telemetry services, and analytics capabilities. But as enterprises realize they can also deploy their own custom on-premises applications, they will start to do so.
Service providers who are already on their way with uCPE will have an advantage, as they already have the platform and framework to deploy other virtual functions on-demand. For others, the need to customize will be a strong driving force for abandoning fixed function appliances and moving to uCPE.
Flexibility: The key to success in 2021!
These predictions are not very hard to make and they are hardly controversial. But if there is one thing we have learnt over the last 12 months, it is that the uncertainties we live with and the rapid evolution of security and networking technologies require a great deal of flexibility. In networking at least, uCPE is the on-premises and edge platform that can deliver that flexibility. The world will continue to evolve, and things will never be the same again, but it doesn’t mean that some things can’t change for the better.
