Roughly 7 out of 10 enterprise network service buyers indicated their budgets will remain the same or increase in 2023. Preliminary results from the survey were fielded from February 20 to March 3, 2023. Stay tuned for more insights.
BTW: Gartner estimates that annual worldwide enterprise network connectivity services spending will top $260 billion in 2023.
While we are on the topic . . .
Here is a Cheat Sheet of the Top Five Trends We Are Watching, and the Advice to Enterprise Sourcing Teams
Secure Access Service Edge
SASE ranks near the top of the list of Gartner client questions in this space. Many networking vendors, as well as security vendors, have pivoted their strategy to provide SASE capabilities and are now heavily marketing the concept to enterprises. Communication service providers have already launched managed service offerings too. However, capability analysis shows most single vendor offerings are immature and/or incomplete.
Recommendation: Cut complexity and cost by consolidating vendors at contract renewals for WAN firewall, VPN refresh and ZTNA, cloud access security, web browsing security or SD-WAN.
Multicloud Networking Software
Multicloud networking software is trending primarily because organizations find that hyperscalers' own networking frameworks lack feature depth in single cloud use cases. Also, they lack management consistency and functionality breadth for multi-cloud environments. According to a Gartner survey, 76% of organizations that use the public cloud are using multiple public clouds. t Increasingly, enterprises need simplification and management consistency for cloud-to-cloud data traffic routing.
Recommendation: When investing in multi-cloud networking software, remain flexible by taking advantage of consumption-based pricing options and avoiding long-term contracts.
5G & FWA
We are watching the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) space closely where a wider range of edge-delivered applications continue to emerge. Many clients ask about how 5G FWA can be their backup connection or primary in remote areas. The challenge is that 5G coverage continues to be spotty making it less favoured in a global application. The supply market for 5G industrial IoT endpoints and communication interfaces for the OT also needs further development.
Recommendation: Go ahead with pilot trials of 5G IoT and edge networking applications as proof of concept, but delay investment until you can confirm coverage and service support.
NetDevOps
Organizations that implement NetDevOps typically automate more than half of their networking activities. This is in stark contrast to most enterprise network teams that typically automate 10% to 25% of network activities, centred on simple workflows and activities that are easy to automate.
Recommendation: Invest in network automation tools that offer customizable workflows that allow you to leverage automation already in place.
Network as a Service
Disruption. Since organisations have been comfortable with the “as-a-service” model for their cloud, it’s natural to see their interest to use it for their on-premises networking infrastructure too. From switches, routers and SD-WAN devices, gateways and firewalls to self-service capabilities and on-demand delivery for connections to the cloud. We are tracking this disruption and see it offering up more flexibility and OpEx pricing models.
Recommendation: Snapshot the “before” environment to lay claim to the ROI of the “after”.
First published on Gartner Blog Network
