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Migrating MPLS Networks to the New Era of Cloud Networking

MPLS remains the VPN of choice for enterprise networks that support business critical applications. However, MPLS is also expensive, complex to deploy and inflexible, which will not cut it for the cloud first requirements of next generation enterprise networking. The pandemic underscored the business case for the cloud: public cloud vendors were in the frontline of the emergency response, providing applications and services to keep businesses running as they scrambled to reorganise the workforce, reconfigure the supply chain and find new ways to stay connected to customers.

As cloud providers continue to invest heavily in compute power and connectivity, we can foresee a time when enterprises will outsource all but the strategic management and control of their networks, when capacity can be scaled up and down as needed, when everything will be virtualised and almost all aspects of IT will be delivered as a service.

If the ultimate destination is clear, the journey is not. The reality is that many MPLS customers are not ready to entrust everything to the cloud, where performance, security and management issues continue to weigh in the balance against low cost. For the next few years, custom hybrid network implementations will increase.

The travel arrangements for the future will centre on the SD-WAN players and the new generation of cloud networking vendors, vying to open migration routes that help the enterprise to integrate multiple connection types, rapidly turn on new capacity and assure the performance of critical applications.

Customers will continue to seek guarantees of security, better return on investment, reduced complexity and improved management and control. Above all, they will demand clear migration paths that allow them to embrace the opportunities of the cloud while unwinding investments in existing networks.

Analyst Chair: Erin Dunne, Director of Research Services, Vertical Systems Group

Mar 23, 2021 03:00 PM in London