Predicting the long run is difficult.
As an analyst, that’s precisely what individuals hope I can do. After all, nobody can predict the long run, however we will mannequin varied outcomes given the most effective knowledge we’ve available.
So utilizing the information, let’s make a prediction about the long run affect of AI on enterprise networks.
There are numerous methods to method this, however the important thing space I’ll tackle on this weblog collection is the affect of AI on enterprise community configurations. The 2 key areas the place our knowledge are helpful for this are predicting the budgetary affect of:
- AI-driven bandwidth demand will increase.
- The continued transfer away from office-to-office connectivity to connecting customers to property within the cloud.
I’m not going to deal with how automation will change community administration itself, however moderately how these above modifications affect the overall value of possession (TCOs) of ensuing WAN configurations.
Deep studying and LLMs require giant transfers of knowledge for coaching and inference. Palo Alto not too long ago launched a report that they noticed an 890% improve in bandwidth demand final yr. That’s huge! After all that’s largely between knowledge facilities, however the implications for any department workplace or website are nonetheless clear. Nokia predicts that AI-specific visitors will develop at a CAGR of 24% a yr by means of 2033. A lot of the work of AI is going on within the cloud, making conventional MPLS architectures with centralized breakouts inefficient and gradual. To not point out costly
Whereas we will’t predict a lot in regards to the affect of AI on particular traces of enterprise, we can actually have a look at how giant will increase in bandwidth demand and cloud-centric hybrid architectures affect community prices. This weblog collection will tackle modeling a number of doable AI-age community configurations and the way they are going to affect budgets. I do that on a regular basis for purchasers of our WAN Value Benchmark platform, which is the device we’re utilizing to do that modeling.
Modeling Community Configurations
We have now been working varied hypothetical situations since 2019, however in 2025, we would have liked a significant revision to maintain tempo with these new AI-driven configurations. This evaluation will have a look at an ordinary and high-capacity MPLS community and examine that to:
- a Conservative Tiered Websites WAN,
- an ordinary Tiered Websites WAN,
- a pared-down Distant Employee Hybrid WAN,
- an Web-First WAN,
- and essentially the most radical revision, a Hub and Spoke WAN.
Apart from the Distant Hybrid WAN, the entire hypothetical community situations have the identical bodily geography throughout 150 international websites. Our intention after we created this unique hypothetical community in 2019 was to seize a smaller enterprise/multinational community (and to maintain the comparability work simpler for our analysts!) and to guarantee that it captures developments in key markets all around the world. Our community consists of seven knowledge facilities among the many 150 websites in key regional knowledge middle hub cities:
- Tokyo
- Hong Kong
- Frankfurt
- London
- Ashburn
- San Jose
- São Paulo
We don’t specify a vertical for this hypothetical enterprise; nevertheless, it’s doubtless closest to a enterprise providers firm (suppose consulting, accounting, legislation agency) as most websites are in a key metro’s downtown or suburbs. This doesn’t characterize an business with rural or distant websites which have very lengthy entry traces; most of our entry traces are within the 0-5 km and 6-15 km ranges. Whereas our websites fall principally within the U.S. & Canada and Western Europe, the community spreads throughout the globe.
Proportion of Websites in Every Subregion–All WAN Eventualities
Notice: Every part represents the overall contribution of the listed area to the worldwide WAN dimension.
Hypothetical Community Map
Twin MPLS WAN
Our baseline or management Twin MPLS community is supposed to characterize what enterprises are forsaking: an all-MPLS community with active-active twin ports and totally redundant entry traces. The geographic distribution of the common bandwidth out there at every website featured under displays the overall bandwidth availability of the community and the way websites are distributed inside every area. We are going to use this chart to match modifications to the community configurations and the way they affect out there bandwidth. This chart represents the overall bandwidth of all underlay merchandise at every particular person website, averaged throughout your complete subregion. For the beginning community that’s merely twice the MPLS port we chosen as it’s an active-active MPLS community.
Common Whole Bandwidth per Web site in Every Subregion—Twin MPLS WAN
Notice: Every bar represents the common complete website bandwidth, together with a number of ports or underlay providers, throughout all websites within the listed subregion.
- East Asia has the best bandwidth, with a mean of two,868 Mbps, as a result of it has two knowledge facilities (DCs) and comparatively fewer websites than Western Europe or the U.S., which additionally has two DCs.
- Equally, the common in Latin America is introduced as much as a mean bandwidth of 907 Mbps by the Brazilian DC.
- Different areas present a lot smaller common bandwidths, particularly these which might be costly. Within the community design, we stored value in thoughts to mirror the truth that bandwidth could also be restricted in high-cost areas.
The typical bandwidth per website globally is 1,298 Mbps; nevertheless, that is introduced up considerably by the big capacities on the knowledge facilities and some giant headquarters or campuses. Typical websites are a lot decrease, within the 10-200 Mbps vary.
Distribution of Whole Web site Speeds—Twin MPLS WAN
Notice: Every part represents the proportion of complete website bandwidths that fall inside every bandwidth vary.
- Because the WAN has active-active MPLS ports, the overall website velocity is definitely twice that of the only port, which is the quantity we concentrate on to find out the out there bandwidth at any given website or throughout the community.
- Solely about one-quarter of web sites have a complete bandwidth of 100 Mbps or much less.
- About 15 websites, or 11%, are above GigE. These characterize the seven knowledge facilities and some giant regional hubs.
Excessive Capability Twin MPLS WAN
Our beginning management community would show strained below AI-drive bandwidth calls for, so we added a further management community. Within the MPLS setting, many enterprises would renew on a three- and even five-year foundation and maybe solely then tackle rising bandwidth necessities. This extra management is in place to show the state of affairs the place maybe a WAN supervisor in 2025 was renewing a community that they had bought in 2022 and now wanted to spice up bandwidth by at the least 50% throughout the board. If this enterprise was not but in a position to undertake SD-WAN/SASE and nonetheless wanted MPLS at each website, we needed to see the associated fee affect of a bigger MPLS community.
Common Whole Bandwidth per Web site in Every Subregion—Twin MPLS WAN vs. Excessive Capability Twin MPLS WAN
Notice: Every bar represents the common complete website bandwidth, together with a number of ports or underlay providers, throughout all websites within the listed subregion.
- The typical bandwidth per website comes out to 2,133 Mbps, which is a 64% improve over the unique MPLS community.
Distribution of Whole Web site Speeds—Excessive Capability Twin MPLS WAN
Notice: Every part represents the proportion of complete website bandwidths that fall inside every bandwidth vary.
- We now not have any bandwidths within the 11-20 Mbps vary.
- The smallest bandwidth vary, 21-50 Mbps, has dropped from about 13% to three% of the worldwide WAN.
- The proportion of web sites falling within the bandwidth vary 501-1,000 Mbps has decreased by about 1%, now accounting for 13% of web sites.
- Round 25% of the websites now have a bandwidth bigger than GigE.
So, how do these bigger bandwidths affect value? Properly, the associated fee per bit goes down with larger capacities, so whereas we count on prices to go up considerably, we didn’t count on prices to go up by as a lot because the bandwidth improve.
Unique Twin MPLS and Excessive-Capability Twin MPLS State of affairs TCOs
Notice: Every column represents the overall annual value of possession for that WAN state of affairs, damaged out by product in every colour part.
- Whereas the common bandwidth out there per workplace went up by 64%, the TCO solely rose by 43%, going from $8.1m to $11.6m.
- Whereas the unit value benefit is obvious, this may nonetheless characterize a drastic change in finances for the community to accommodate the growing bandwidth calls for of the fashionable enterprise.
Whereas nobody would need to improve their community finances by 43%, that isn’t the top of the story. An all-MPLS structure is inefficient for internet-driven cloud visitors, and previous class of service know-how can not make the most of utility particular coverage and efficiency administration when enterprises undertake SD-WAN.
Within the subsequent posts we’re going to have a look at varied hybrid situations that make the most of SD-WAN, native breakouts for higher cloud connectivity, and elevated bandwidth.
