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Telstra has been heralded as Australia’s top locally-based partner for providing software defined (SD) solutions and services across the country.
According to technology research firm Information Service Group’s (ISG) Provider Lens Network — Software Defined Solutions and Services report, Telstra was assessed out of 40 providers across five SD areas to be a leader in four of these areas.
The areas covered by the report include managed (SD) WAN services, software defined networking (SDN) transformation services (consulting and implementation), enterprise networks technology and service suppliers, edge technologies and services and secure access service edge (SASE).
The telco was beaten only by multinationals Infosys, Orange Business Services and Wipro, which were leaders in all five areas.
Meanwhile, Datacom Australia was a leader in two areas and Data#3, Dicker Data, Macquarie Telecom and Versa were leaders in one area each.
Additionally, Datacom Australia and Empired were among other international players to be named Rising Stars – companies that are defined by ISG as having a “promising portfolio” and “high future potential” – in one area each.
The highlighting of top-performing Australian companies within the SD market comes as ISG claims “many” Australian enterprises are taking up SDN during digital transformation projects.
The COVID-19 pandemic in particular has been a major cause for companies to rethink work models, supply chains and business requirements. To support this, organisations are building software-defined-everything (SDx) architectures, the firm claimed, which in turn is creating the need to increase network capacity and re-evaluate network configurations and security.
“The need for more flexibility, automation and security is challenging rigid IT architectures at Australian companies,” said Troy Williams, digital lead for ISG Asia Pacific. “Many are now moving from traditional networking to SDN.”
The report claimed the pandemic has created a demand for faster cloud migrations, more distributed networks, more use of collaboration tools and the movement of applications from on-premises data centres to cloud-hosted environments.
As a result, SD-WAN solutions are sought after to support software-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service environments.
“Australian companies need to develop a greater understanding of how SDN works hand in hand with cloudification, mobility and digital business transformation,” ISG said.
“Over the next five years, creating next-generation enterprises in Australia may require new network ecosystems that incorporate a wide array of technologies, including multi-cloud architectures, SASE, AI [artificial intelligence]-assisted network automation and 5G/Wi-Fi 6 convergence.”
In addition to its success in the SD market, Telstra has also been referred to by ISG as a leader as a Microsoft partner and for private and hybrid cloud, as announced in April and earlier in July, respectively.
Meanwhile, SD Rising Star Empired was highlighted in May as Australia's top locally-based ServiceNow partner, as well as a leader in managed services for Microsoft Azure and Dynamics 365 services.
