Gartner’s Magic Quadrant For WAN Edge Infrastructure: Cisco Makes A Comeback

October 01, 2020, 02:41 PM EDT

The 2020 report saw Cisco bounce back in the leadership quadrant and four more players up their SD-WAN games enough to be named leaders. Here are the vendors that made the cut.

Leader: Versa Networks

Versa Networks went from visionary for the past two years to leader in 2020, thanks to its strong focus on combining SD-WAN with other branch networking functions, including routing and security.

Privately held Versa has two offerings: its full-featured VOS (formerly FlexVNF), which can be delivered on the Versa branch Cloud Services Gateways (CSG) or third-party hardware, along with the Versa Director and Versa Analytics. The second offering is Versa Titan, which is a simpler, cloud-based solution for SMBs. Gartner said it expects Versa to make future investments in SASE, multi-cloud fabric and campus SD-LAN.

Versa, a smaller player in the market compared to some of the incumbent networking players, is at risk of becoming spread too thin and defocused, which could affect code quality and customer support, especially as market consolidation impacts this market and Versa feels the pressure, Gartner said.

Learn More: SD-WAN

Gina Narcisi

Gina Narcisi is a senior editor covering the networking and telecom markets for CRN.com. Prior to joining CRN, she covered the networking, unified communications and cloud space for TechTarget. She can be reached at gnarcisi@thechannelcompany.com.