Predicting the longer term is tough.
As an analyst, that’s precisely what individuals hope I can do. In fact, nobody can predict the longer term, however we are able to mannequin varied outcomes given the very best information we have now available.
So utilizing the information, let’s make a prediction about the longer term affect of AI on enterprise networks.
There are numerous methods to strategy this, however the important thing space I’ll deal with on this weblog collection is the affect of AI on enterprise community configurations. The 2 key areas the place our information are helpful for this are predicting the budgetary affect of:
- AI-driven bandwidth demand will increase.
- The continuing transfer away from office-to-office connectivity to connecting customers to belongings within the cloud.
I’m not going to handle how automation will change community administration itself, however somewhat how these above modifications affect the entire value of possession (TCOs) of ensuing WAN configurations.
Deep studying and LLMs require massive transfers of knowledge for coaching and inference. Palo Alto lately launched a report that they noticed an 890% improve in bandwidth demand final 12 months. That’s large! In fact that’s largely between information 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 12 months by means of 2033. A lot of the work of AI is occurring within the cloud, making conventional MPLS architectures with centralized breakouts inefficient and sluggish. To not point out costly.
Whereas we are able to’t predict a lot concerning the affect of AI on particular traces of enterprise, we can definitely have a look at how massive will increase in bandwidth demand and cloud-centric hybrid architectures affect community prices. This weblog collection will deal with modeling a number of doable AI-age community configurations and the way they’ll affect budgets. I do that on a regular basis for purchasers of our WAN Value Benchmark platform, which is the instrument we’re utilizing to do that modeling.
Modeling Community Configurations
Now we have been working varied hypothetical eventualities since 2019, however in 2025, we wanted a significant revision to maintain tempo with these new AI-driven configurations. This evaluation will have a look at a normal and high-capacity MPLS community and examine that to:
- a Conservative Tiered Websites WAN,
- a normal 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.
Aside from the Distant Hybrid WAN, all the hypothetical community eventualities have the identical bodily geography throughout 150 international websites. Our goal once 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 tendencies in key markets everywhere in the world. Our community consists of seven information facilities among the many 150 websites in key regional information heart 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 trade 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 Situations
Observe: Every part represents the entire 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 abandoning: an all-MPLS community with active-active twin ports and totally redundant entry traces. The geographic distribution of the common bandwidth obtainable at every website featured under displays the entire bandwidth availability of the community and the way websites are distributed inside every area. We’ll use this chart to check modifications to the community configurations and the way they affect obtainable bandwidth. This chart represents the entire bandwidth of all underlay merchandise at every particular person website, averaged throughout the whole 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
Observe: Every bar represents the common whole 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 median of two,868 Mbps, as a result of it has two information 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 median 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 fact that bandwidth could also be restricted in high-cost areas.
The common bandwidth per website globally is 1,298 Mbps; nevertheless, that is introduced up considerably by the big capacities on the information facilities and some massive headquarters or campuses. Typical websites are a lot decrease, within the 10-200 Mbps vary.
Distribution of Whole Web site Speeds—Twin MPLS WAN
Observe: Every part represents the proportion of whole website bandwidths that fall inside every bandwidth vary.
- For the reason that WAN has active-active MPLS ports, the entire website velocity is definitely twice that of the one port, which is the quantity we concentrate on to find out the obtainable 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 information facilities and some massive regional hubs.
Excessive Capability Twin MPLS WAN
Our beginning management community would show strained underneath AI-drive bandwidth calls for, so we added an extra management community. Within the MPLS setting, many enterprises would renew on a three- and even five-year foundation and maybe solely then deal with rising bandwidth necessities. This extra management is in place to exhibit the situation the place maybe a WAN supervisor in 2025 was renewing a community they’d bought in 2022 and now wanted to spice up bandwidth by a minimum of 50% throughout the board. If this enterprise was not but capable of undertake SD-WAN/SASE and nonetheless wanted MPLS at each website, we wished to see the 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
Observe: Every bar represents the common whole website bandwidth, together with a number of ports or underlay providers, throughout all websites within the listed subregion.
- The common 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
Observe: Every part represents the proportion of whole 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 share 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 fee per bit goes down with greater 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 Situation TCOs
Observe: Every column represents the entire annual value of possession for that WAN situation, damaged out by product in every coloration part.
- Whereas the common bandwidth obtainable 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 could nonetheless characterize a drastic change in funds for the community to accommodate the rising bandwidth calls for of the trendy enterprise.
Whereas nobody would need to improve their community funds by 43%, that isn’t the tip 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 software particular coverage and efficiency administration when enterprises undertake SD-WAN.
Within the subsequent posts we’re going to have a look at varied hybrid eventualities that make the most of SD-WAN, native breakouts for higher cloud connectivity, and elevated bandwidth.
