5 sdn business benefits

Report ID: R6810613

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reports

5 SDN BusinessBenefits Have your engineers caught software-defined networking fever

yet? While SDN is currently most appropriate for test labs or

tech-savvy cloud operators like Google and Facebook, thats

poised to change. As the technology matures and products

proliferate, enterprise IT executives need a grasp of the potential

benefits.

By Kurt Marko

Reports. InformationWeek.com J u n e 2 0 1 3 $ 9 9

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reports.informationweek.com June 2013 2

CONTENTS

TABLE OF

3 Authors Bio

4 Executive Summary

5 Not Just Academic

5 Figure 1: Timeline for Testing SDN

6 Figure 2: SDN Production Timeline

7 Figure 3: SDN Selling Points

8 Figure 4: LAN Challenges Mitigated by SDN

9 Figure 5: Impact of SDN on Network Security

10 Figure 6: SDN Security Benefits

11 Figure 7: SDN Security Problems

12 Figure 8: Dumbing Down of Switches and

Routers?

13 Figure 9: Expected Impact of SDN on the

Switch and Router Market

14 Spend Money to Save Money

14 Figure 10: 2013 IT Initiatives

15 Figure 11: Top IT Initiatives for 2013

16 Conclusions & Recommendations

17 Related Reports

5 S D N B u s i n e s s B e n e f i t s

ABOUT US

InformationWeek Reports analysts arm business technology decision-makers with real-world perspective based on qualitativeand quantitative research, business and technology assessment andplanning tools, and adoption best practices gleaned from experience.

OUR STAFFLorna Garey, content director; [email protected] Vallis, managing editor, research; [email protected] Chodak, copy chief; [email protected] DeFilippo, associate art director; [email protected]

Find all of our reports at reports.informationweek.com.

June 2013 3

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2013 InformationWeek, Reproduction Prohibited

reports

reports.informationweek.com

5 S D N B u s i n e s s B e n e f i t s

Kurt Marko is an InformationWeek and Network Computing contributor and IT industry veteran, pursuing his passion for communications after a varied careerthat has spanned virtually the entire high-tech food chain from chips to systems.Upon graduating from Stanford University with a BS and MS in Electrical Engineer-ing, Kurt spent several years as a semiconductor device physicist, doing processdesign, modeling and testing. He then joined AT&T Bell Laboratories as a memorychip designer and CAD and simulation developer.Moving to Hewlett-Packard, Kurt started in the laser printer R&D lab doing

electrophotography development, for which he earned a patent, but his love ofcomputers eventually led him to join HPs nascent technical IT group. He spent 15years as an IT engineer and was a lead architect for several enterprisewide infra-structure projects at HP, including the Windows domain infrastructure, remote access service, Exchange e-mail infrastructure and managed Web services.

Kurt MarkoInformationWeek Reports

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June 2013 4

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First came virtual servers, then storage virtualization. Now networks are the latest infra-structure technology to incorporate a software abstraction layer between logical andphysical resources. From an engineering perspective, the technology, which we outline inour InformationWeek Reports SDN Buyers Guide, is both sophisticated and elegant. It alsopromises tangible business benefits, including faster provisioning of network resources,more automation and a concomitant reduction in operational expenses, greater flexibilityin network configuration and customization, increased utilization of network capacity witha reduction in capital expense, and better security. The key word, for now, is promises. Real, live SDN implementations are few, and

commercial products are young and scarce. Dont try to construct an ROI spreadsheet forSDN yet; any financial model will necessarily be based on assumptions bordering onSWAGs. But do realize that SDN is no passing fad. IT leaders should begin developing astrategy to harness productivity and business benefits while being informed enough towithstand the inevitable overselling and misappropriation of an admittedly loosely defined term the SDN-washing of vendors seeking to capitalize on the trend de jour. Asolid understanding of the basics and a well-thought strategy can help us separate theSDN wheat of truly innovative and transformative products from the chaff of repackagednetwork monitoring and management tools.


reports 5 S D N B u s i n e s s B e n e f i t s

EXECUTIVE

SUMMAR

Y

Table of Contents

June 2013 5

Given its origins in Stanfords Computer Science department, its fashionable in somecircles to dismiss SDN and OpenFlow, the enabling technology with which its associ-ated, as a nice research project, a pointy-headed professors technology in search of aproblem. But from the start, papers and pre-sentations from SDNs inventors, visionarieslike Nick McKeown (still a Stanford professor),Guido Appenzeller (now CEO and co-founderof Big Switch) and Martin Casado (co-founderand CTO of Nicira, since acquired for over $1.2billion by VMware) quantified the impetus be-hind their research: Enable network technol-ogy innovation and versatility while reducingcomplexity and administrative overhead.These goals are just as relevant today andforetell the significant benefits SDN will deliver to enterprise networks. McKeowns long been frustratedwith the sta-

tus quo. Today, security, routing and energymanagement are dictated by the box, he says.Thats why the infrastructure hasnt changed

for 40 years. Even as servers embraced layersof software abstraction in the form of virtual-ization and cloud stacks, networks have beenstuck in a world of fixed-function boxes requir-ing copious, largely manual, administration overhead that demands expensive and time-

consuming labor for operating and (heavenforbid) reconfiguring networks for new appli-cations or conditions.Software-defined networks that introduce

an abstraction layer separating network intel-ligence and configuration from physical con-

Previous Next

What is your expected timeline to test SDN?

4% 5%7%

14%

30%

10%

13%

17%

Timeline for Testing SDN

Data: InformationWeek 2012 Software-Defined Networking Survey of 250 business technology professionals, July 2012 R5451012/2

1

Were done testing; SDN is in production now

We are currently testing

Less than six months

Six to 12 months

Dont know

No plans to test SDN

More than 24 monthsMore than 12 but less than 24 months


Not Just Academic

reports 5 S D N B u s i n e s s B e n e f i t s Table of Contents

Figure 1

June 2013 6

nections and hardware are a natural exten-sion of concepts popularized by server virtu-alization. SDN offers programmatic controlover both physical and virtual network de-vices, including switches, bridges and NICsthat can dynamically respond to changingnetwork conditions using OpenFlow or someother programmable and controllablepacket/flow processing protocol. A blog from the recent Open Networking

Summit, a premier venue for OpenFlow devel-opers, provides a good summation of the net-working industrys collective motivation toembrace SDN. Legacy networks are difficult tooptimize or customize; have increasingly seri-ous security, scalability and manageabilityproblems; and are expensive to expand, par-ticularly at the rate required by todays accel-erating traffic demands. SDN is the industrysresponse, a rewriting of the rules of networkdesign and operations while still workingwithin Internet standards.SDN has come a long way in a few years, and

truly market-shaping growth is just around thecorner, as we highlight in the InformationWeek

Reports SDN Buyers Guide. IDC estimates SDNbusiness will more than double every year be-tween now and 2016 to reach $3.7 billion. An-other estimate by the research firm Marketsand Markets is somewhat less optimistic, pre-dicting SDN business will total $2.1 billion in2017. Still, any way you look at it, SDN is firmlyon big networking equipment vendors radar

as they hone product strategies and eye acqui-sition targets. Consider Januarys Juniper part-ner conference, where the company devotedits primetime keynotes to its SDN vision, orCiscos premiere event, its Live conference,where the opening keynote this June will high-light the companys vision of an application-centric, intelligent network (sounds a lot like

Previous Next

What is your expected timeline to have SDN in production?

4% 5%

9%

17%

37%

17%

11%

SDN Production Timeline


1

We have SDN in production now

Less than six months

Six to 12 months

More than 12 but less than 24 months

Dont know

No plans to have SDN in production

More than 24 months



Figure 2

June 2013 7

SDN to us).While SDN is reshaping the network equip-

ment market, enterprises neednt make hugechanges in strategy just yet. Indeed, for most,SDN is barely a blip, with 43% of respondentsto our July 2012 InformationWeek SDN Surveysaying they have no plans for or even know ifthey will test. Production SDN was even furtheron the horizon, though well be very interestedto see the trend lines in our 2013 poll.The relevant question for CIOs now is how

might SDN enhance enterprise applications,streamline business processes and improve IToperations. Alan Conley, CTO at Zenoss, seesthree major business drivers behind SDN:faster response to new service requests; re-duced OpEx from improved automation; andhigher reliability by using tested, repeatableautomated processes. We would add im-proved security and, longer term, some levelof reduced CapEx as purpose-built hardwareis replaced by virtual appliances running oncommodity servers.As for network challenges, most respon-

dents believe SDN will lead to better use of

existing capacity and more efficient, auto-mated network management and provision-ing. Nearly one-third also see SDN improvingsecurity and normalizing the application ofnetwork security policies across increasinglycomplex topologies. But this data point likelyunderstates the perceived benefits: When

asked directly about security, the number say-ing SDN will make networks somewhat ormuch more secure rises to 42% Lets dig into five key benefits.1. Service provisioning speed and agilityAs VMs replaced standalone servers and be-

came the application hosting platform of

Previous Next

What benefits did or will you use to sell SDN to the business?

SDN Selling Points

A more efficient and flexible network that speeds service delivery

Cost savings on hardware

Ability to apply QoS via traffic awareness

Ability to test new routing protocols

Other

We wont even try; benefits are on the networking side

Note: Multiple responses allowedBase: 116 respondents at organizations with, or planning to have, SDN in productionData: InformationWeek 2012 Software-Defined Networking Survey of 250 business technology professionals, July 2012

R5451012/7

66%

36%

17%

50%

3%

4%



Figure 3

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June 2013 8

choice, the proliferation of virtual NICs,vswitches and VLANs turned production net-works into a spaghetti bowl of entwined phys-ical/virtual links and hardware/software inter-dependencies. That complexity makesnetworks difficult to manage especially forteams (you know who you are) that still keeptrack of VLANs with Excel spreadsheets andmodify as new virtual workloads come onlineand existing applications migrate to newservers. It also means networks are oftenwastefully overprovisioned, since its so tempt-ing to build in excess capacity upfront to avoidthe hassle of adding it later. Why not buy twoNICs instead of one or extra firewall scanningcapacity so you don't have to change anythinglater if application usage grows? Our SDN survey respondents see speed and

agility as significant selling points: Two-thirdsof those who use or plan to use SDN citedmore efficient and flexible networks that ac-celerate service delivery. No. 2 on the list iscost savings, which well address in a bit.2. Network flexibility and holistic management

A major challenge on todays networks isthe difficulty of setting up new applicationsand VMs. The overhead of changing networkconfigurations to handle evolving workloads

and equipment needs is an impediment tofully utilizing dynamic VM migration tools likevMotion, and it hampers development andtesting of new cloud applications. Fear of dis-

Previous Next

Which of the following data center LAN challenges do you believe SDN can be most helpful in overcoming?

LAN Challenges Mitigated by SDN

Impr

ove

netw

ork

utili

zatio

n an

d ef

ficie

ncy

Auto

mat

e m

ore

prov

ision

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man

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ove

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ions

that

are

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g th

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twor

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Redu

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mpl

exity

Incr

ease

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ty

Redu

ce re

lianc

e on

pro

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tary

pro

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ls or

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cols

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priv

ate

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reat

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and

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mic

mov

emen

t of v

irtua

l mac

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lianc

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vend

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prod

uct l

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Supp

ort m

ore

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-wes

t tra

ffic

Othe

r

Note: Three responses allowedBase: 116 respondents at organizations with, or planning to have, SDN in productionData: InformationWeek 2012 Software-Defined Networking Survey of 250 business technology professionals, July 2012

R5451012/6

42%

35%

32%

31%

29%

25%

23%

20%

12%

10%

8%

4%

1% 1%



Figure 4

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turbing applications on production networksis a powerful deterrent. Indeed, this was one motivator for McKeown

and his team to commence the research thatled to OpenFlow. As the ONS blog postinghighlights, SDN enables network experimen-tation without impact. OpenFlow combinedwith slicing and virtualization also makes itpossible for researchers to experiment withtheir ideas on a slice of a production networkwithout impacting it, he writes. This gives re-searchers a much larger and more realistictesting infrastructure than has been possiblebefore.And, virtualization has not only introduced

software switches, but a new network man-agement layer, as vswitches and vNICs aretypically configured and operated fromwithin the VM administration console, not thenetwork monitoring system (NMS). As GregFerro writes in this Network Computing col-umn, SDN fills major gaps in existing networkmanagement software. We dont have SDNin [legacy] networks. Todays network man-agement platforms are insufficient and fail to

provide visibility and control to network own-ers, writes Ferro. Most of this failure is due tothe limitations of the SNMP protocol, which isthe only standard method for extracting datafrom the network (although some tools haveattempted to extract data from the com-mand-line interfaces). SDN will provide a uni-fied set of APIs, supported by multiple ven-dors allowing a single management console

or piece of orchestration software to admin-ister and control both physical and virtual re-sources. Furthermore, by enabling north-bound APIs like onePK to control southboundswitching resources through APIs like Open-Flow, SDN provides management platformsgreater ease and flexibility in manipulatinglow-level network parameters, thus enablinga new level of software sophistication.

SDN Buyers Guide

SDN products are finally hittingthe enterprise market. Do youhave a strategy? This report, thecompanion to our online com-parison, explains key factors toconsider in four areas: software-defined networking controllers,applications, physical or virtualswitches, and other compatiblehardware.

DownloadDownload



What impact will SDN have on network security?

31%

10%

11%

15%

1%

32%

Impact of SDN on Network Security


1Networks will be much more secure

Networks will be somewhat more secure

It will have no impact on network security

Dont know

Networks will be somewhat less secure

Networks will be much less secure

Figure 5

June 2013 9

3. Better, more granular securityAlthough a sizable fraction of respondents

to our SDN survey wouldnt speculate on theeffect software-controlled networking mighthave on network security, of those willing tooffer an opinion, over 60% say the technologywill make networks more secure. We agreeand suggest that security is a great way to getSDN on the radar. In our InformationWeek2013 IT Spending Priorities Survey, 58% haveimproving security atop their project lists forthis year, with an additional 38% planning toupgrade the network infrastructure.Virtualization and associated virtual net-

work devices have made a hash of traditionalsecurity policies based on physical networksegments (or VLANs) and implemented viahardware security appliances. Its almost im-possible to consistently apply firewall andcontent filtering policies when endpoints andapplications VMs in this case are comingand going on various physical systemsthroughout the data center. Add the complex-ity introduced by BYOD devices on client net-works, which are ideally subjected to more re-

strictive security policies than office-bounddesktops on the same physical network, andyoure left with a security horror show.

Our survey respondents recognize the po-tential here, as 44% say SDNs will likely in-crease their ability to implement consistent,

Previous Next

What are the security benefits of SDN?

SDN Security Benefits

Ability to apply a unified security policy

Data security via transport encryption

Integrated and more granular access control

Additional points where security controls can be placed to address software/application security issues

Intra-hypervisor (VM-VM) packet inspection and firewall

Malware filtering

More situation- or application-aware security event logging details

Improved security appliance performance/throughput

DoS mitigation

Other

None; it will hurt security

Note: Multiple responses allowedData: InformationWeek 2012 Software-Defined Networking Survey of 250 business technology professionals, July 2012

R5451012/10

44%

32%

29%

28%

22%

22%

22%

17%

17%

4%

12%



Figure 6

June 2013 10

June 2013 11

unified security policies, while 29% cite theability to deliver more granular access controlpolicies. Other potentially significant securitybenefits include pervasive data transport en-cryption and the ability to apply more granu-lar policies by easily placing new security con-trol points throughout the network.But SDN will always be but one piece of the

network security puzzle, and one that mustbe integrated with existing technologies, afact cited by 44% of our survey respondentswho worry about the unintended securityconsequences of SDN. Likewise, 40% worrythat SDN controllers introduce new, andpowerful, attack surfaces. Its a valid pointechoed by Christopher Hoff, chief security architect at Juniper Networks and longtimeadvocate for more robust network securitydesigns and practices. Any time we put con-trol and management capabilities outside ofthe routers and switches, we are expandingthe attack surface, Hoff said in an interview.The bottom line is that SDN is no panacea; itcan improve network security only if implemented thoughtfully and as part of a

comprehensive program.4. Efficiency and lower operational expensesImproving network flexibility, agility, security

and utilization are clear benefits on their ownmerits, but collectively they mean that SDNs

should lead to lower operational and capitalcosts. Were too early in the implementationcycle for definitive models of SDNs financialeffects, but a look at the improvements toserver utilization and admin efficiency deliv-ered by virtualization show the potential for

Previous Next

What security problems do you associate with SDN?

SDN Security Problems

Lack of integration with existing security technologies

The controller scares meif an attacker owns that, it's game over

More complexity, which always means less security

Functionality leveraging controller intelligence opens new attack surfaces

Inability to inspect every packet

It will hinder performance to such a degree that public cloud/SaaS use will increase

Other

None; it will help security

Note: Multiple responses allowedData: InformationWeek 2012 Software-Defined Networking Survey of 250 business technology professionals, July 2012

R5451012/11

44%

40%

38%

38%

20%

10%

2%

9%



Figure 7

LikeLike TweetTweetTweet

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June 2013 12

savings by putting networks under softwarecontrol. Although half of our survey respondents us-

ing or planning on SDNs see lower hardwarecosts (a point well address next) as a chiefselling point, we actually believe that reducedOpEx is the larger opportunity. An earlier ex-ample highlighted a common network adminpractice of keeping track of hosts, IPs and sub-nets assigned to various VLANs using aspreadsheet. Imagine if applications were au-tomatically assigned to designated VLANs,and VLANs configured on the proper hostsevery time a new VM was instantiated or mi-grated no manual intervention required.Similar efficiencies will deliver lower OpEx asother network management tasks are auto-mated through SDN.5. Virtual network services and loweredCapExEstablished network equipment vendors

fear and conversely, equipment buyershope that SDNs will smash proprietaryhegemonies by turning routers and switchesinto white box commodities. This is already

happening at the largest cloud services;Google, Amazon and Facebook have rebuilttheir networks as SDNs and now source largevolumes of equipment directly from AsianODMs. But we think the effect on enterpriseswill be much more muted. Even hypothesiz-ing a faster uptake of SDN than is indicated byour survey, most shops will have a mix of soft-

ware-controlled and legacy equipment for adecade or more. Still, that doesnt mean there wont be any

capital savings.SDN opens up three avenues of CapEx re-

duction: improved utilization of existingequipment, enabling the substitution of soft-ware appliances and virtualized network serv-

Previous Next

Do you believe that SDN will relegate switches and routers to being just relatively dumb forwarding engines?

34%29%

37%

Dumbing Down of Switches and Routers?


1

Yes

No

Dont know

FAST FACT

40%worry that SDN controllers

introduce new, and

powerful, attack surfaces.



Figure 8

June 2013 13

ices for dedicated hardware, and thwartingvendor lock-in. Since SDN makes it easier tochange and scale network configurations onexisting applications, it means admins are lesslikely to reserve more resources and capacitythan needed for current workloads. Trans-lated, existing equipment gets used to nearerits maximal capacity. For example, in describ-ing Googles OpenFlow implementation atthe 2012 Open Networking Summit, Googlesenior VP for technical infrastructure Urs Hlzle said that soon the company will getvery close to 100% utilization. Along the samelines, Zenoss Conley says SDNs will acceleratethe move to converged Ethernet data/storagenetworks, which facilitate efficient packing ofdifferent resource types onto a single network.By virtualizing network functions, SDN also

obviates the need for dedicated hardware ap-pliances like firewalls, IDS/IPS, load bal-ancers/ADCs or WAN accelerators. While soft-ware appliances arent free, since they run oncommodity x86 servers and are configuredand deployed entirely in software, they are

less expensive to both buy and scale. Finally,decoupling network intelligence and controlfrom proprietary technology and products al-lows enterprises to more easily multi-sourcehardware components and move to less ex-pensive alternatives should a primary vendorjack up prices, or something better or faster

come along.Only 29% of our survey respondents say

SDN will reduce costs; however, we left thequestion open ended and didnt specificallycall out TCO or operational overhead, so wesuspect most were thinking about upfrontcapital costs. And while most respondents

Previous Next

Which of the following best describes your expectation of SDNs effect on the switch and router market by 2015?

Expected Impact of SDN on the Switch and Router Market

Somewhat lower prices, less hardware differentiation, but same main players

The cost will just shift to controllers and software

Fewer proprietary features, emphasis on standards

Will reshuffle market leadership

Switches and routers will be a commodity; pricing landscape will be totally different

Switches and routers will be a commodity; vendor landscape will be totally different

Other

No impact; Cisco will figure out how to maintain its margins


22%

18%

16%

11%

7%

7%

1%

18%

Rreports.informationweek.com


Figure 9

June 2013 14

dont think SDN leads to an eventual dumb-ing down of switches and routers, 22% do ex-pect SDN to result in somewhat lower prices

and less hardware differentiation. However,theres clearly skepticism that establishedequipment vendors will let this happen. As

one respondent commented, Manufacturerswill always build differentiating features intotheir hardware that will prevent infrastructureequipment from becoming purely a com-modity. Still, reducing the friction of substi-tuting one vendor for another will undoubt-edly put downward pressure on prices.

Spend Money to Save MoneyBefore embarking on an SDN project, its im-

portant to understand where capital invest-ments will be required. CapEx for SDN comesin three areas: network controller hardwareand software, physical switching hardware,and network applications runtime and man-agement/orchestration platforms. > SDN controller: Controllers are the brains

of an SDN infrastructure, sort of an auto-mated, software-controlled dispatcher. Assuch, they must be both scalable and reliable,meaning controllers are usually implementedas multiple hardware or software appliancesrunning either in parallel or in a master/slaveconfiguration. Either scenario is implementedon standard x86 servers with multiple NICs,

Previous Next

Which of the following IT initiatives are on your organizations project list for 2013?

2013 IT Initiatives

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Note: Multiple responses allowedData: InformationWeek 2013 IT Spending Priorities Survey of 513 business technology professionals, March 2013

R6840513/1

R



Figure 10

June 2013 15

the only difference being that hardware ap-pliances, like the NEC ProgrammableFlowController, bundle the server and software ina preintegrated package, while software ap-

pliances like the Big Switch Big Network Con-troller or Plexxi Control are BYOS (bring yourown server). As Big Switch points out in itsdata sheet, Big Network Controller can oper-

ate in clusters as virtual systems or on physicalservers, although production installationswill likely use dedicated systems. A controllershardware needs are fairly modest; NEC uses aXeon E5-2600 series with 64 GB and a couplesmall HDDs, boxes widely available for about$5,000 from your favorite server vendor. Thebig expense is the software. For example, BigSwitch uses a subscription model for its Net-work Controller, with pricing starting at$1,700 per month, meaning a minimal config-uration with redundant controllers wouldhave a discounted upfront cost (PV) of over$56,000 for three years at a 5% cost of capital.> SDN-compatible switches: To separate

the data plane of packet switching and flowforwarding from the control plane setting thedirections and policies for those packets,switches (and routers) must be able to sharecontrol information with the SDN controller.In most cases, this will be done using Open-Flow, although there are a few vertically inte-grated platforms that use alternative proto-cols. But OpenFlow is relatively new, and whileit is increasingly supported by new products,

Previous Next

Which of the following IT initiatives are your organizations top two projects for 2013?

Top IT Initiatives for 2013

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Figure 11

June 2013 16

most legacy switches are out of luck. Thus, anySDN project should budget for new switches,an expenditure already in many organiza-tions roadmaps as they outgrow old hard-ware. Probably the best source of compatibil-ity information is the list maintained by theONF.> SDN applications and NMS/orchestra-tion software: Costs for SDN applications in-cludes the price of the software and, if theydont run on a controller but rather an alter-native SDN virtual service platform like Ju-nipers JunosV app engine, the hardwarenecessary to host the platform. As with anyvirtualized app, youll need to size servers ap-propriately to handle the workload. Al-though controllers act as a hosting platformfor SDN-specific applications, most shops willalso use SDN to automate other aspects ofnetwork management, functions now han-dled by an NMS or orchestration system.Chances are this will require a software upgrade and/or optional module(s) support-ing OpenFlow or any alternative SDN appli-cation platforms you have deployed, like

Cisco onePK or JunosV App Engine.

Conclusions & RecommendationsWere very early in the evolution of enterprise

networks from a collection of physically inter-connected hardware to a pool of abstract, al-gorithmically controlled virtualized resources.However, like server virtualization, its bothlikely to succeed and too big to ignore. >> Get educated: The flurry of SDN activ-

ity by all the major IT vendors should be awakeup call; start paying attention. Conleysays the best thing most IT organizations cando is to become SDN-savvy. We agree, thatswhy we introduced the Network ComputingSDN Buyers Guide, which will be updatedthroughout the year, and accompanyingoverview report of SDN technology. For now,dont rush any purchase orders. The biggestbarrier to SDN adoption is the immaturity ofboth first-generation products and the basetechnology a situation that will resolve it-self. By all means talk to your vendors, but acautious, deliberate approach is in order. >> Tear down silos: SDN is just one piece

of what VMware terms the software-defineddata center. Virtualized, abstracted compute,storage and network resources are tomor-rows servers, disks and switches. But trans-forming hardware into software also facili-tates no, necessitates thetransformation of IT management and admin-istrative processes. Hardware fiefdoms andsiloed admin teams are out, converged infra-structure and DevOps is in. The more holisti-cally your IT team thinks about application re-source provisioning and management, themore value software-enabled and -controlledabstractions like SDN and clouds will provide.>> Be wary of SDN-washing: Vendors

can spot a hot topic and are quick to appro-priate ill-defined labels like SDN (or cloudor fabric or green) to promote their prod-ucts. Beware of repackaged network manage-ment or monitoring systems now wearing theSDN label. Use the knowledge gainedthrough step one (education) to filter out SDNfacades from SDN foundations.

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Research: SDN: Deployment Plans and Tech Ecosystem: In this follow-up report to Understanding Software-DefinedNetworks, we examine IT deployment plans and explore the technology ecosystem around SDN. This report drills intothe current and planned efforts of the Open Networking Foundation, which is driving standardization of the OpenFlowprotocol, and provides details on SDN strategies from 17 vendors.

Informed CIO: SDN and Server Virtualization on a Collision Course:With every data center resource compute,storage and networks now virtualized, with a software abstraction layer insulating the logical resource from physicalmanifestation, the push is on to consolidate operational control and programmatic automation. First came VMMs andcloud software stacks for servers and storage, then SDN for networks; soon, the two will link to form what VMware callssoftware-defined data centers. Its a nexus thats disrupting strategies at major IT vendors and, ultimately if not immi-nently, every enterprise data center.

Strategy: The Virtual Network: TRILL, SDN and More:Virtualization forces data center networks to become more flexible and efficient. Network engineers have a bewildering number of options to support highly virtualized environ-ments, from fabrics or meshes built on protocols such as TRILL and SPB to Layer 2 extensions that support VM mobilitybetween data centers to software-defined networking. This report breaks down standards-based and proprietary options for building next-generation, virtualization-centric networks.

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