(Editor’s note: A recent Enterprise Management Associates survey of 303 WAN managers found that native monitoring is an important factor in choosing SD-WAN products, but many respondents say additional third-party monitoring tools are also needed. This article by EMA Vice President of Research Networking Shamus McGillicuddy explores some of the survey results included in the report “Enterprise WAN Transformation: SD-WAN, SASE, and the Pandemic” that is based on the survey.)
SD-WAN technology offers native monitoring capabilities that can enhance network operations. It’s a major selling point, right up there with hybrid WAN connectivity and direct cloud connectivity, but native SD-WAN monitoring is not a replacement for traditional network monitoring tools.
SD-WAN products typically have a cloud-based controller that offers both visiblity and management for the overlay that SD-WAN creates on a company’s physical WAN. Most of the SD-WAN-controller consoles offer reports and dashboards with clear insights into performance by site, by application, and by cloud provider.
This visiblity component is essential to an SD-WAN implementation, and the survey found that enterprises list native monitoring as the third most important SD-WAN product requirement. (The first two are hybrid-connectivity support and integrated network security.) Also, 48% of IT organizations consider improved visiblity a top driver of SD-WAN adoption.
