Frost & Sullivan predicts 38% compound annual growth between 2020 and 2025
The group formerly known as the Metro-Ethernet Forum, MEF, has published new standards for software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN) that add “critical enhancements”.
They include new service capabilities for underlay connectivity, application performance metrics, and security zones for service providers deploying SD-WAN managed services.
The new standards include:
• MEF 70.1 updates MEF 70, “the industry’s first global SD-WAN standard” with new service attributes for underlay connectivity services, new performance metrics designed to give visibility into an application’s performance within the provider’s network and across multiple service providers, and infrastructure to support application-based security defined in MEF 88 (see below).
• MEF 88 is the association’s first security standard which adds definitions of threats, malware protections, security policy terminology and attributes, and outling the actions a policy should take in response to particular threats.
• MEF 95 provides a unified policy framework for MEF’s SD-WAN (MEF 70.1), Network Slicing (MEF 84), and secure access service edge (SASE – MEF W117) and Zero Trust (MEF W118) standards coming in 2022.
Roopa Honnachari, VP of research & Global Program Leader – Network & Edge Services at Frost & Sullivan, notes, “We’re seeing a healthy uptick in SD-WAN deployments driven by work from anywhere, as more users are connecting to the cloud and cloud-based applications.
“We estimate the global SD-WAN service market will grow from $2.85 billion in 2020 to $14.5B in 2025, at a compound annual growth rate of 38%,” said.
MEF claims its work in standardising and certifying SD-WAN managed services is helping to drive that adoption.
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