Recently, Standard Chartered Bank forecasted that GDP growth of Vietnam in 2017 would reach 6,6%, after being slow down in 2016 due to effects of natural disasters.

Come along with manufacturing and construction, Vietnam now sees the blooming of ICT industry due to high rate of Internet Rate penetration and smartphone users.

Already, a number of business and technology startups are emerging in Vietnam. Momo, a Vietnamese FinTech disrupter, recently raised US$28 million from Standard Chartered and Goldman Sachs.

SD-WAN: The most fasting connection network 

Emerging enterprises need quality, reliable network performance in order to work nimbly and rapidly, keep assets secure, and deploy new locations as business grows.

One way to keep network performance at its best is to capitalise on the most up-to-date advances in wide area network (WAN) technologies. Whereas legacy WAN technologies once made use of expensive hardware and fixed circuits, today, Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are doing a better job for less money. With SD-WAN technology, startups and regional hubs can improve their network performance and flexibility. Then, leveraging these networks’ modern and efficient virtual infrastructure, enterprises can enhance their productivity, uncover new data strategies, and ultimately drive competitive advantage.

SD-WAN technology helps businesses connect their network across multiple locations in the same country, around the region or around the globe. Using a public or private cloud infrastructure, the network can span any geographic distance – an impossible feat before SD-WAN technology, which today is able to keep a network fast, flexible and affordable to scale no matter how far it stretches.

What’s more, by combining the power of SD-WAN with NFV, businesses can stop relying on a physical router and instead capitalize on the new generation of network applications that sit in the cloud.  Trading in hardware for software gives enterprises the ability to keep productivity high and operating costs low, thanks to a network that’s easy to deploy and maintain; underpinned by technology that is agile, simple to automate and secure.

Although SD-WAN and NFV are somewhat new technologies, they offer a range of verified benefits for a growing number of enterprises around the world. In fact, the International Data Corporation (IDC) has said that it expects global SD-WAN revenues to surpass US$6 billion in less than four years. As for NFV, its projected market worth will hit US$15.5 billion by 2020, according to the most recent estimates from IHS Markit.

The growing popularity of SD-WAN and NFV technologies is hardly surprising, considering companies’ growing desire to reduce IT costs while at the same time enhancing their digital capabilities. For home-grown startups, as well as international companies entering Vietnam for the first time, SD-WAN and NFV offer an unprecedented opportunity to bolster network infrastructure and make business processes more efficient. With a foundation network that is scalable, flexible and secure, businesses can get a leg up on the competition and help drive future economic growth in Vietnam.