SD-WAN Promised Simpler Networking – What Actually Happened?

A look at some of the realities of SD-WAN and what IT leaders are now evaluating before their next refresh.

Centralized control, cheaper bandwidth, and simpler branch management were SD-WAN's core promises. Today, the technology is widely deployed, with one report forecasting the SD-WAN market to grow from $9.17 billion in 2025 to $12.03 billion this year.

But despite high hopes that came with the deployments, available market reports have shown that the technology still falls short of many original expectations.

Here is a look at some of the realities of SD-WAN and what IT leaders are now evaluating before their next refresh.

Which SD-WAN Promises Materialized

Looking at the last few years, one of the most significant changes SD-WAN has brought to the midmarket corporate WAN environment is the gradual shift away from costlier, slower MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) networking frameworks. Vendors originally marketed SD-WAN as an affordable and better alternative to MPLS, and according to recent market data, DIA-backed SD-WAN has helped organizations save about 25 percent in costs.

Aside from reduced costs, IT leaders also identified operational agility, standardized branch networking and support for local internet breakout as the primary outcomes of their SD-WAN deployments, according to data from TeleGeography's 2025 WAN Manager Survey.While some of the leaders reported skepticism about its long-term relevance against endpoint-based SASE, the report noted that SD-WAN remains critical for physical branch offices and managing IoT devices.

Another survey from Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) revealed similar benefits. Among 226 IT professionals they surveyed, 98.2 percent reported at least partial success with their WAN and security initiatives after adopting SD-WAN, although only 46 per4cent described those initiatives as completely successful.

Where SD-WAN Meets Roadblocks

One of the biggest obstacles EMA researchers singled out in SD-WAN deployments is integration complexity. According to its report, organizations are facing major challenges moving from SD-WAN toward a broader SASE architecture, with four in ten IT leaders describing the transition as "somewhat difficult" outright. Part of that difficulty is attributed to staffing. EMA found that more than half of respondents cited shortages in networking and security expertise as a factor complicating the combination of SD-WAN with SASE.

Cloud usage has also increased since SD-WAN became mainstream in the midmarket. Kentik, a network observability firm, notes that when policies, overlays, and cloud paths all move at once, visibility into what users are experiencing becomes very difficult. This is particularly worrisome for midmarket IT teams who want to remain security resilient amidst growing cloud threats. Many respondents in the EMA survey also said that managing security and networking in silos is one of their biggest concerns.

Organizations should also pay closer attention to the security risks introduced by SD-WAN platforms themselves, advised Juan Mathews Rebello Santos, cybersecurity researcher and founder at BNVD.org.

"SD-WAN vendors ship their own firewalls and routing stacks, and those introduce a new attack surface. You cannot assume the vendor has hardened their own stack," Rebello Santos said.

To solve this problem, organizations are turning to third-party monitoring tools, with 81.4 percent of them labeling them as “very important,” according to EMA's report. However, only about half reported being satisfied with the visibility those tools provide.

What the Future Holds For SD-WAN Refresh

Cloud traffic, SaaS usage, and security integrations have fundamentally changed what organizations expect from their WAN infrastructure. As a result, many IT leaders are re-evaluating their SD-WAN vendors. IDC research shows organizations increasingly prioritize AI-powered network operations, stronger security capabilities, and better cost optimization when planning their next deployments.

That shift mirrors TeleGeography's findings, which note that SASE, zero trust, Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), and AIOps are becoming central considerations as enterprises modernize their WAN strategies.

Rebello Santos told MES Computing he believes organizations should also rethink the role SD-WAN plays within the broader security architecture.

"For the next refresh, I am treating SD-WAN purely as a transport layer, not as a security boundary. I would insist on SASE integration with a separate cloud-delivered security stack rather than relying on the SD-WAN vendor's bundled firewall."

Automation should become a core evaluation criterion rather than an afterthought.

"I would push for API-driven automation, so the SD-WAN configuration is managed as code and auditable through Git rather than a GUI," he added.

Key Takeaways For Your Next SD-WAN Move