As enterprise move towards better alignment of their IT infrastructure with respect to software driven flexible business utilities, there are a lot of expectations from software defined networking space. However, the bigger advantage of SDN is coming in the form of centralizing and simplifying control of enterprise network management.
Different set of vendors are making different claims, but some the most important advantages of SDN fabric are traffic programmability, greater agility, the ability to create policy driven network supervision, and implementation of network automation for the enterprise community. All these capabilities are putting great power in the hands of enterprise CIOs and making way for their winning turf.
As per the views of Subhasish Gupta Country Manager – India & SAARC at Allied Telesis, Software Defined Networking or SDN is a solution looking for a problem.
“To date much of the emphasis has been on the carrier and service provider space where there are definite benefits that can be delivered by deploying SDN. Allied Telesis considers SDN as one element of a portfolio of technologies that can assist those that deploy and manage network to overcome their everyday challenges,” he explains.
Shibu Paul, Regional Sales Director – India, ME and SEA at Array Networks adds that enterprises are gradually heading towards cloud and are taking advantage of cloud principles such as virtualization and automation to streamline operations along with maximizing the utilization of their IT infrastructure.
“NFV and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) solutions are playing a key role in the overall industry shift towards networking and application virtualization. Furthermore, we have introduced significant forward-looking products, APIs and tools that support the shift towards the virtualized networking landscape. Moving forward into 2015, will continue the efforts to develop next-generation software-centric application delivery solutions for IaaS, SaaS and enterprise private clouds, allowing end customers to easily manage and adapt their virtual environments as needed.” He adds on.
Subhasish Gupta from Allied Telesis further adds that as deployments of SDN increase, so too will the applications for this innovative technology.
“At Allied Telesis, we feel that 2015 will see SDN increasingly deployed by enterprise organizations as the application or use cases for SDN increases,” he explains.
Shibu Paul from Array Networks says that service providers will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of SDN and with implications of SDN industry can have great opportunities in forthcoming years.
“Recently, Array has joined hands with OPNFV (Open forum for Network function virtualization) as a silver member. This forum works on an open source model to develop and create products, services over the cloud. SDN throws enormous number of opportunities by allowing us to collaborate with the industry where open source community also contributes in the development of OPNFV. Now-a-days industries are shifting towards SDN and NFV and are providing with a platform to develop dynamic network environments. With SDN approach, organizations continue to use their current infrastructure and can still achieve benefit from the aspects of SDN.” He adds on.
The Role of System Integrators in SDN
Subhasish Gupta from Allied Telesis says that Allied Telesis delivers solutions to the real world challenges of its customers. “Many of our customers have indicated that flexibility and agility are not their most significant problem and instead they are grappling with the complexity of their network and the cost associated with ongoing management. So while SDN may deliver benefits in terms of flexibility and agility, we also have technologies like AMF that assist with reducing TCO associated with ongoing management of their network infrastructure.”
Allied Telesis has partnered with a number of SDN solution providers and today is working hand in hand with them to deliver integrated solutions to its joint customer base.
“We are looking to grow the number of solution providers and system integrators that we work with in this space during 2015 particularly those with a focus on the Enterprise market,” he adds on.
On the other hand, Shibu Paul, Regional Sales Director – India, ME and SEA at Array Networks says that Array is investing heavily into SDN and NFV which goes tightly into services over the cloud.
“We are working with most of the service providers in the country. Our strategy is to improve the product usability of multitenant application delivery controller appliance and focus on creating quality deliverables with SDN approach. In addition, joining OPNFV project we have created opportunity to collaborate with service providers and end users to plan the best practices needed to advance the evolution of NFV and SDN. The aim is to collectively develop a platform which can advance the evolution of SDN and NFV to ensure the integration.” He explains.
Conclusion
While specific advantages of SDN will vary from network to network, however there are benefits from the sheer business agility it offers for network administration and automation.
As many experts believe, the best way to get the most out of SDN scenario is to assess the separate network components and infrastructure and then decide whether SDN can help address issues such as enterprise resource availability, virtualization, and network security within the IT environment. If the answer is yes, SDN could be just the solution enterprise need to create more value from their data center ecosystems.
