VMware, Inc. announced that it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. as a Leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN-marking it the sixth consecutive year VMware has been named a Leader in the report.

Cloud-native by design, VMware SD-WAN and VMware SASE enable enterprises to deliver more consistent, secure, and reliable connectivity for the branch and distributed workforce. Gartner recognized VMware SD-WAN for its virtual and physical Edge appliances, optional gateway points of presence (PoPs), software licenses and a cloud-based orchestrator.

"It is an honor to be recognized as a Leader for SD-WAN by Gartner once again," said Abe Ankumah, vice president and general manager, SD-WAN and SASE, VMware. "We believe this is a result of our sustained focus on customer needs such as enhancing multi-cloud and SaaS connectivity, hybrid worker connectivity, integrated edge security, and edge-native application support. We continue to evolve VMware SD-WAN as organizations seek a complete solution to enable WAN transformation and the software-defined edge."

From VMware SD-WAN to the Software-Defined Edge

VMware SD-WAN provides connectivity as part of VMware's software-defined edge - a distributed digital infrastructure that runs workloads and edge-native applications across a number of locations, close to endpoints that are producing and consuming data. Recently, VMware introduced the VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator (formerly VMware SASE Orchestrator) to provide unified management for VMware SASE and the VMware Edge Compute Stack - an industry-first offering to bridge the gap between edge networking and edge compute. Earlier in 2023, VMware delivered VMware SD-Access (formerly VMware SD-WAN Client) - providing enterprises more secure, network optimized connectivity for remote users.

VMware SD-WAN provides the intelligent network overlay for VMware SASE. By delivering cloud networking and cloud security services with VMware SASE, customers can achieve:

• With a cloud-first approach, VMware SD-WAN delivers a more secure, reliable, and efficient on-ramping to SaaS and IaaS providers via a unique global network of cloud-hosted gateways, allowing customers to simplify their path to cloud transformation. VMware provides partners the ability to host gateways themselves extending the reach of VMware SD-WAN via federation - making it unique amongst other SD-WAN providers.
• Network evolution to help organizations modernize their digital infrastructures and monetize their network overlays. VMware addresses all three layers of the software-defined edge - the top edge compute layer which hosts the applications and workloads; the intelligent overlay where SD-WAN and security services run; and the underlay network layer which runs the network connectivity across fixed and 5G networks providing orchestration and network programmability.
• On-premises and cloud security including Security Service Edge (SSE) capabilities to help customers better secure access to all web and cloud services as well as locally hosted applications. Additionally, VMware capabilities include an ICSA-certified branch firewall, third-party security services, and configurable business policies that direct traffic to the cloud or data center for better protection against attacks at all levels.
• Enhanced application performance with user access and an improved experience for mission-critical and real-time apps, even during degraded network conditions.
• Simplified operations via a centralized, cloud-hosted management solution that provides a single unified interface for configuration, network-level visibility and management, and application usage monitoring across multiple transports, service providers, and remote sites. VMware Edge Network Intelligence delivers AIOps capabilities from end-to-end visibility from device to app to AI-assisted remediation.