5G deployments could be a boon to the SD-WAN market and open up a host of new technological opportunities for SD-WAN, said Orange's Didier Duriez.

"5G will multiply the opportunities for SD-WAN... I think it will be another boost to SD-WAN adoption," Duriez told Light Reading in a recent interview. In addition to potentially increasing SD-WAN adoption, 5G could enable new use cases such as a network slice dedicated to SD-WAN, said Orange Business Services' EVP of Global Solutions.

Figure 1: Didier Duriez, EVP of Global Solutions, Orange Business Services

AT&T and Verizon recently announced plans to boost their SD-WAN services with 5G. AT&T said 5G could benefit SD-WAN services by providing additional traffic management capabilities, and Verizon proposed that 5G support new use cases. Those use cases include the "ability to enable an intelligent security perimeter for mobile workers, ensuring that access to corporate assets are governed by their security posture, with a different slice or policy on per application basis from the users' devices." (See Verizon, AT&T Push SD-WAN Into 5G.)

Orange Business Services is also considering supplementing its current SD-WAN offering from Cisco Viptela and Riverbed by partnering with an additional SD-WAN vendor; Duriez said the operator is currently considering about five SD-WAN suppliers. Light Reading's Iain Morris recently reported that Juniper may be the front runner among vendors under consideration for Orange's additional SD-WAN service. (See Juniper in Running for SD-WAN Deal With Orange.)

The Cisco Viptela solution works well for multi-national, large enterprise customers, but OBS needs an additional SD-WAN option for smaller companies, explained Duriez. In addition, he noted that some of Orange Business Services' customers may prefer to work with their "existing install base" as they consider adding a SD-WAN service instead of migrating to Cisco Viptela.

"We clearly see there is a need for smaller companies to access the beauty of SD-WAN, which is the abstraction of the network, and to an extent Cisco Viptela does this," said Duriez. However, he notes that an additional SD-WAN supplier would supplement Orange's existing SD-WAN offering and provide additional network abstraction capabilities.

SD-WAN will also become an increasingly important technology for enterprises as they move to multi-cloud environments, added Duriez.

"We have very few customers that will only use one cloud -- many are increasing the number of clouds they use," he said. SD-WAN simplifies organizations' ability to move "content between clouds and provide the best entry point to each cloud."

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Earlier this week, Orange Business Services announced a five-year, $25 million SD-WAN deal with engineering consultancy Aurecon. (See Orange Business Services Lands $25M SD-WAN, Security Deal and Next Stop for Versa Networks – Europe.)

Orange has over 100 SD-WAN customers, the largest of which is Siemens with 1,500 sites in 94 countries. (See Siemens Goes All-In on Orange SD-WAN.)

— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Senior Editor, Light Reading