Cloud providers should unify virtual networking and SD-WAN
I’ve predicted that virtual networks will be hot in 2023, but that begs the question of what exactly a “virtual network” is. One definition says, “not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so”, and that surely makes you wonder how businesses would be willing to commit to such a thing. Truth is, they already have, but I think it’s time to look closely at the concept of virtual networks, and to categorize what exactly is going on there. Why look at something that isn’t real and only appears to be? We’ll see.
I could offer a lot of discussions on the early days of virtual network evolution here, but they’re probably as useless as a debate on where your lap goes when you stand up, an example of worthless effort I recall from a childhood book. Instead, let’s look at virtual networks from two directions—the user and the application—and see how those two directions are shaping virtual network technology, increasing its importance, and converging on a new network model overall.