Research Overview

Data-driven business operations coupled with the rise in remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a significant evolution of the hybrid cloud. What was initially comprised of one or possibly two public clouds connected to one or more corporate or hosted data centers has advanced to include not only major points of presence—like data centers or interconnect buildings—but also a multitude of edge locations. Even “the edge” itself is advancing. Whereas the edge was once considered to be branch retail locations with limited processing power, “the edge” now encompasses locations and devices that use more complex applications and require connectivity to enable data processing. And yet, many of these edge locations are without wireline internet access. The expansion of edge computing—and thereby, the expansion of hybrid cloud—introduces complexity and places new demands on the corporate network, as the business needs to connect multiple cloud data centers and hosted or private cloud data centers to its own, as well as numerous branch and edge locations, some of which may have limited connectivity.

In order to reap the benefits of cloud computing, like scalability and flexibility, businesses require equally flexible and scalable bandwidth to access it. They also need the ability to manage and orchestrate the network to ensure that every point of presence has exactly the bandwidth and network services to ensure appropriate workload performance, no matter where the application is accessed from.

Network service providers have responded, creating offers that combine networking with orchestration and adjacent services that help businesses to better enable a successful hybrid cloud. Frost and Sullivan has designated their range of services as the “hybrid enablement network services” market. This evaluates five providers in the hybrid enablement network services market and evaluates their offer and future potential.