2021 WAN in Review

If you've been a loyal listener of the WAN Manager Podcast, you might remember that Greg Bryan and Elizabeth Thorne teamed up for a very special WAN year-in-review last year. They're back at it for 2021. In our latest podcast holiday special, we're shaking the snow globe that is the 2021 WANscape. 

To keep the conversation on track, Elizabeth made a list (and checked it twice), but we couldn't fit everything into one episode. Part 1 covers SASE adoption, SD-WAN maturation, how remote work is changing the face of corporate networking, the evolving MPLS vs. DIA matchup, and more.

Tune in next week for part two. The duo will cover 5G deployment trends, the rising popularity of multi-cloud, and new backbone/transport services from your friendly neighborhood CSP.

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Key Takeaways

The shift to remote and hybrid work schedules was a major focus for WAN managers.

This trend, initially implemented as emergency measures, became clearer in 2021 as a permanent shift impacting the future of the office worker.

WAN managers are contemplating the implications for network procurement at office sites and how to secure and optimize the experience for remote end users. While initially thought to potentially decrease office bandwidth needs, the widespread adoption of bandwidth-hungry tools like Zoom and Teams means that when people do return to the office, they are likely to use more bandwidth than before, often over the internet rather than traditional MPLS.

This cultural change where people are "fine with good enough" connectivity, often demonstrated by residential broadband's ability to handle video conferencing, has also contributed to this shift.

WAN topologies are significantly changing, with Direct Internet Access (DIA) rapidly gaining on MPLS.

For the first time in TeleGeography's WAN Manager Survey, MPLS represented less than 50% of average sites in respondent networks (46%), with DIA catching up at 44%.

This marks a substantial change from just four years prior when MPLS was a strong majority (around 80%). The trend is also evident in network redundancy strategies, where the most common backup for MPLS is now alternative connectivity services like DIA, broadband, or even mobile, rather than a second MPLS line. This shift can potentially lower costs by replacing expensive MPLS backups and increase network redundancy for some enterprises.

Zero Trust Security (ZTS) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) were top trends, seeing increased awareness and implementation.

Awareness and implementation of Zero Trust principles ("never trust, always verify") significantly increased from 9% of respondents in 2019 to over one-third in 2021.

However, many implementations involve leveraging features available through existing cloud providers, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) via services like Office 365 or Active Directory.

SASE is frequently viewed as more of a vendor term than an enterprise one, often used by vendors who have rebranded from being primarily SD-WAN providers. Enterprises are often using a mix of different security vendors rather than adopting a single, integrated SASE stack, which speakers suggest might not fully exist yet. More complex ZTS elements like network segmentation have much lower implementation rates due to the challenges involved in discovering and managing all aspects of the network.