Richard Humphreys |
New research from Barracuda Networks, a provider of cloud-delivered security and data protection solutions, has revealed that CEOs in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) lead the way in cloud-friendly networking.
The report titled “Security, Connectivity, and Control: The Challenges and Opportunities of SD-WAN” has found that software-defined networking in wide area network (SD-WAN) deployments are increasing to address networking challenges resulting from the explosive growth of WAN traffic due to high demand for cloud applications and services.
Despite this, the study indicates that challenges remain for many IT leaders including complexity (48%), cloud performance (47%), and performance between locations (46%). One-third have already deployed SD-WAN in most of their sites, and 49% are in the process of doing so or will in the next year. 70% of IT leaders said they risk losing a competitive advantage if they don’t update their WAN.
Security is a top priority when choosing an SD-WAN solution. 81% said advanced threat protection and centralised management were very important or crucial to their SD-WAN purchase.
The most common benefits of SD-WAN deployments are improved network security (57%), connectivity (56%), and network flexibility and agility (53%). Nearly half of respondents said they had reduced overall costs thanks to SD-WAN, and 36% reduced costs specifically for MPLS services.
“These findings show that as IT professionals increasingly turn to SD-WAN to address their networking challenges, they’re looking for solutions that provide security, simplicity, and cost savings,” said Klaus Gheri, VP, Network Security, Barracuda. “Barracuda meets those needs by offering a single solution combining advanced security and SD-WAN.”
The report includes data from more than 900 respondents in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. Respondents come from companies ranging from 1,000 to more than 5,000 employees across multiple sectors, including healthcare, finance, education, manufacturing, public sector, and retail.
Read the report in full.