Predicting the long run is tough.
As an analyst, that’s precisely what folks hope I can do. In fact, nobody can predict the long run, however we are able to mannequin numerous outcomes given the perfect knowledge we now have available.
So utilizing the info, 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 deal with on this weblog sequence 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 quite how these above adjustments affect the whole price of possession (TCOs) of ensuing WAN configurations.
Deep studying and LLMs require giant 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 knowledge facilities, however the implications for any department workplace or web site are nonetheless clear. Nokia predicts that AI-specific site visitors will develop at a CAGR of 24% a 12 months by 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 actually take a look at how giant will increase in bandwidth demand and cloud-centric hybrid architectures affect community prices. This weblog sequence will deal with modeling a number of potential AI-age community configurations and the way they may affect budgets. I do that on a regular basis for purchasers of our WAN Price Benchmark platform, which is the software we’re utilizing to do that modeling.
Modeling Community Configurations
We have now been operating numerous hypothetical situations since 2019, however in 2025, we wanted a serious revision to maintain tempo with these new AI-driven configurations. This evaluation will take a look at a normal and high-capacity MPLS community and evaluate that to:
- a Conservative Tiered Websites WAN,
- a normal Tiered Websites WAN,
- a pared-down Distant Employee Hybrid WAN,
- an Web-First WAN,
- and probably 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 world websites. Our purpose once we created this authentic hypothetical community in 2019 was to seize a smaller enterprise/multinational community (and to maintain the comparability work simpler for our analysts!) and to be sure that it captures traits in key markets everywhere in the world. Our community contains seven knowledge facilities among the many 150 websites in key regional knowledge 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 possible 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 signify 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 largely 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 whole 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 signify what enterprises are abandoning: an all-MPLS community with active-active twin ports and totally redundant entry traces. The geographic distribution of the typical bandwidth out there at every web site featured under displays the whole bandwidth availability of the community and the way websites are distributed inside every area. We are going to use this chart to match adjustments to the community configurations and the way they affect out there bandwidth. This chart represents the whole bandwidth of all underlay merchandise at every particular person web site, averaged throughout the 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 Website in Every Subregion—Twin MPLS WAN
Observe: Every bar represents the typical whole web site 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 knowledge facilities (DCs) and comparatively fewer websites than Western Europe or the U.S., which additionally has two DCs.
- Equally, the typical 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 are costly. Within the community design, we stored price in thoughts to replicate the truth that bandwidth could also be restricted in high-cost places.
The typical bandwidth per web site 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 Website Speeds—Twin MPLS WAN
Observe: Every part represents the share of whole web site bandwidths that fall inside every bandwidth vary.
- For the reason that WAN has active-active MPLS ports, the whole web site pace is definitely twice that of the only port, which is the quantity we give attention to to find out the out there bandwidth at any given web site or throughout the community.
- Solely about one-quarter of websites have a complete bandwidth of 100 Mbps or much less.
- About 15 websites, or 11%, are above GigE. These signify the seven knowledge facilities and some giant regional hubs.
Excessive Capability Twin MPLS WAN
Our beginning management community would show strained beneath AI-drive bandwidth calls for, so we added an extra management community. Within the MPLS atmosphere, 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 display the state of affairs 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 no less than 50% throughout the board. If this enterprise was not but in a position to undertake SD-WAN/SASE and nonetheless wanted MPLS at each web site, we needed to see the fee affect of a bigger MPLS community.
Common Whole Bandwidth per Website in Every Subregion—Twin MPLS WAN vs. Excessive Capability Twin MPLS WAN
Observe: Every bar represents the typical whole web site bandwidth, together with a number of ports or underlay providers, throughout all websites within the listed subregion.
- The typical bandwidth per web site comes out to 2,133 Mbps, which is a 64% improve over the unique MPLS community.
Distribution of Whole Website Speeds—Excessive Capability Twin MPLS WAN
Observe: Every part represents the share of whole web site 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 websites falling within the bandwidth vary 501-1,000 Mbps has decreased by about 1%, now accounting for 13% of websites.
- Round 25% of the websites now have a bandwidth bigger than GigE.
So, how do these bigger bandwidths affect price? Nicely, 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.
Authentic Twin MPLS and Excessive-Capability Twin MPLS Situation TCOs
Observe: Every column represents the whole annual price of possession for that WAN state of affairs, damaged out by product in every shade part.
- Whereas the typical 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 price benefit is obvious, this could nonetheless signify a drastic change in price range for the community to accommodate the growing bandwidth calls for of the trendy enterprise.
Whereas nobody would need to improve their community price range by 43%, that isn’t the top of the story. An all-MPLS structure is inefficient for internet-driven cloud site visitors, and previous class of service know-how can’t benefit from utility particular coverage and efficiency administration when enterprises undertake SD-WAN.
Within the subsequent posts we’re going to take a look at numerous hybrid situations that benefit from SD-WAN, native breakouts for higher cloud connectivity, and elevated bandwidth.