We are beginning to explore the complex topic of Software Defined Networking (SDN) on this blog. Notwithstanding all the hype, SDN is nothing short of a catalyst enabling the datacenter’s transformation to software-defined infrastructure. At Platform9, I have the pleasure of speaking almost daily to multiple customers and to understand their challenges and key success factors as they reinvent their application architectures and datacenter. With this perspective on market adoption and an inside look on the move to an SDDC, I’d like to discuss the five keys trends driving SDN adoption in the enterprise Fortune 5000 space.
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Trend # 1 With its focus on enabling a programmable network, SDN will emerge as an integral part of Cloud Native Applications in a Hybrid Cloud
SDN implementations have begun to transform networks from being static, overprovisioned and inflexible to efficient, agile and programmable.
How Software Defined Networking (SDN) Enables the Cloud Native Experience…
The Cloud Native experience is being enabled by SDN Controllers in six ways –
- Just in time provisioning of VMs and Application Stacks by lines of business developers and IT admins leading to reduced Capex and Opex
- API based access to complex networking constructs and elements. Such access to network variables is being provided right from the development stage thus resulting in more efficient network testing. For example, CI/CD tools such as Spinnaker offer a deep understanding of the different containers, VMs and security groups present in the deployment architecture
- On the fly allocation of resources and on demand. No need for any kind of static provisioning
- Integration with a host of popular automation and config management tools such as Ansible, Puppet, and Salt Stack.
- Ease of provisioning the network based on a policy across automated configuration tools, ability to rapidly provision VMs and other applications
- The ability to confer custom network policies to different tenet users and applications while maintaining a high degree of security needed in a multitenant architecture
Trend #2 SDN evolves beyond Cloud Computing to the WAN
At the higher end of the industry, cloud services providers such as Google and Facebook already write their own software – SDN controllers, & building their own hardware – switches and routers etc, the enterprise is way behind. The trend is already being felt in Telco and other allied industries. The change that SDN brought to VM compute is being felt at the WAN tier as well.
As more applications move to the Cloud and are being delivered as a SaaS, corporate WAN architectures are also beginning to change. Branch offices and POP (Points of Presence) are increasingly being connected to the central data center using the Software-defined wide area network (SDWAN). A range of WAN technologies such as VPN, Security services, WiFi, Firewalls etc is being written into the software layer and being offered as a service to consuming application, users, and partners. While the specific business needs driving the SDWAN will vary, common themes that are emerging include VPN, Application delivery acceleration for SaaS, Cost reduction and Cloud-based control.
Trend #3 The convergence of Intelligent Edge, IoT Applications and SDN
We have already discussed a myriad of IoT themes in the blog. As IoT implementations which started off in the public cloud are being increasingly moved to the private or a hybrid cloud. Which means that they’re increasingly converging with Enterprise and Operational Applications. SDN is being brought into the picture to drive better network security, multitenancy, traffic segmentation, billing, and customer profiling.
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Trend #4 Industry Verticals begin to explore SDN/NFV for business usecases
This trend is also tied to the ones above, industries such as Retail, Entertainment, Financial Services, and Manufacturing are realizing the advantages that result from being able to tap into customer data and preferences at the points of service. As more of these location-based mobile apps and usecases proliferate, inflexible networks that fail to respond to customer needs are being discarded in favor of an SDN/NFV approach.
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Trend #5 Network and Cloud Admin skills begin to converge
Historically IT teams in the data center were divided into different areas of capability based on skillsets – System Admins, Storage Admins, VM Admins, Network Admin etc. This has resulted in siloed communication in large enterprises. It is a common situation where the network team has no idea what the application’s network needs and runtime characteristics really are. Thanks to SDN and trends such as Hybrid Cloud and DevOps -this is changing.
The job of the future really is a converged persona where the Cloud Admin has not only VM/Container/Automation skills but also possess deep knowledge of SDN constructs & Site Reliability skills. Forward-looking enterprises will push this model of expertise into their datacenter personnel and will upskill them as needed.
Conclusion
The network layer of the data center is the last bastion to change in response to digitization, expect to find this a key area of innovation in the next five years to come.