Vertel, Australia’s largest privately-owned telecommunications carrier, has released the Vertel SD-WAN Indicator 2020 – Australia, conducted by Telsyte, which uncovered that SD-WAN is the new imperative for organisations in 2021 and beyond. 

The report found that COVID-19 has sparked a mini cloud boom, stretching the capacity of wide area networks (WAN), and creating an increase in remote working demands. At the heart of all of this is the user experience, which is measurably affected by the quality, speed and reliability of an organisation’s connectivity to networks and data centres. 

Tony Hudson, commercial director, Vertel, said, “The reality is that the pandemic has largely accelerated digital and cloud initiatives rather than precipitating entirely new initiatives. These technologies provide the potential for organisations to dramatically improve the customer and user experience, deliver new services and advance different operating models. They also demand high-performing, reliable corporate WANs, home networks and public networks, and they make it even more essential to manage network security and mitigate the risk of breaches.” 

As organisations continue to prioritise cloud investment, build for the future and focus on business resilience, software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) has come to the fore as a critical enabling technology. SD-WAN is a network overlay that dramatically improves the responsiveness, dynamism, and performance of the WAN. It helps the WAN more effectively cater for vastly increased loads. Essentially, SD-WAN is the crucial component that guarantees a strong user experience. 

Tony Hudson said, “Given the global pandemic has accelerated the need for investment in digital technologies, SD-WAN is positioned to deliver better network operations and support rapid change and flexibility.” 

Key findings of the Vertel SD-WAN Indicator 2020 – Australia include:

• 52 per cent of organisations have seen increased need to access cloud applications and services due to COVID-19. 
• 46 per cent of organisations are providing more support for working from home since the start of COVID-19. 
• 36 per cent of organisations see their WAN capacity stretched due to increased traffic due to COVID-19. 
• 34 per cent of organisations are prioritising an increased investment in cloud for the next 12 months. 
• 91 per cent of organisations see SD-WAN as imperative for their network. 
• 90 per cent of organisations intend to further invest in or adopt SD-WAN. 
• 36 per cent of organisations adopted SD-WAN to modernise their network for better scalability and security. 
• The top three benefits organisations see from SD-WAN are increased cybersecurity, better performance, and better integration of security and policy control.
• 33 per cent of organisations see initial cost as a top challenge for adopting SD-WAN; 29 per cent cite lack of knowledge as a top challenge. 

Tony Hudson said, “As we move beyond 2020 and into the new normal, business networks must deliver a strong user experience. This means having flexibility in providers and the capability to manage multiple environments. The world will never again look the way it did this time last year; the communications environment is more critical than it’s ever been.” 

The Vertel SD-WAN Indicator 2020 – Australia survey was conducted in September 2020. It included 216 business decision-makers in Australia, each with more than 100 employees and more than three external sites, and represented industries including agriculture; mining; manufacturing; construction; accommodation and food services; education and training; and healthcare and social assistance. 

About Vertel 
Vertel is a wholly-owned, Australian national telecommunications carrier with over 40 years’ experience and have built a reputation as fixed and mobile critical network experts. With a broad range of fixed and mobile network and cloud services, underpinned by excellence in delivery and on-going operations, we specialise in serving customers with high availability, performance, management and security requirements for business, mission and life-critical operations. As the world’s first wireless carrier to achieve MEF certification for its Ethernet Layer 2 service, we can design, build and deliver carrier-grade connectivity and applications for organisations throughout Australia.