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SDN and the future of networking

New Networks

Article from ADMIN 34/2016

By Udo Seidel

Networking is a central focus of IT. With all the virtual machines running on today's networks, it stands to reason that the experts would someday find a way to virtualize the network itself. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an architecture that promises to cope with new demands.

Generally speaking, the IT infrastructure is responsible for three tasks: processing, storing, and transporting data. The IT landscape was fairly static in the time before the virtualization of x86 computers. Planning and implementing changes or upgrades takes months or even years, from ordering, to delivering, and physically installing new hardware. This arduous process has changed radically with the arrival of VMware [1], KVM [2], and Hyper-V[3], because virtualization makes it easy to jump-start new computers.

New computers nearly always require an IP address and network integration. In the past, the configuration, along with physical dismantling and installation and wiring, used to take hours at best, but more like days. Equivalent tasks take a matter of minutes or even seconds in the virtual world.

The network infrastructure has to deal with this dynamic, but traditional approaches and concepts are much too slow to keep up. In addition, other developments, such as the emergence of smartphones and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) [4] technologies, have added additional complications, requiring the integration and management of devices that appear as if out of nowhere and then disappear again.

At the same time, certain connections need to work immediately, securely, and reliably (see the "But of course!" box). The number of examples of the need to find new methods for managing networks could go on and on. A key factor in all solutions is the abstraction of the network hardware, which has led to the development of SDN [5].

But of Course!

Your network is one – of usually

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