The difference between SDN and traditional network operation and maintenance

1. Pain points of traditional network operation and maintenance methods

Manual maintenance of network equipment relies on traditional network management software and other methods to assist manual maintenance. The operation and maintenance efficiency is low and it is easy for differences in personal ability and response to affect the efficiency of operation and maintenance and increase the cost of operation and maintenance.

Traditional network service cutover or new service launch cycle is relatively long. Often large service cutover and switching involve very complex operations. For example, firewall equipment involves the adjustment of multiple policies, and the probability of error is high.

Traditional network fault location is not efficient enough, and some problems are difficult to locate. The progress of fault handling is often affected due to the personal experience and ability of engineers, which ultimately leads to serious consequences and increases the burden of operation and maintenance.

2. Differences and advantages of SND operation and maintenance

The main features of SDN networks are clustering and the use of virtual software-defined network data flows, which are easily presented in a graphical manner to facilitate business launch and subsequent maintenance and expansion.

SDN automated operation and maintenance mode connects with the cloud platform to realize the automation of network services. It can automatically optimize and perceive the traffic path and network congestion in real time, and accurately perceive the network delay and packet loss. At the same time, it can automatically distribute the configuration of replaced spare parts, improve the operation and maintenance efficiency, and avoid errors caused by human operation, which will increase the cost of operation and maintenance.

During SDN operation and maintenance, the physical network structure and logical network structure can be clearly sorted out through a visual graphical interface, and the business flow and management data flow can be clearly understood at a glance. Network failures can be detected through SDN radar, data testing can be simulated through SND simulation terminals, and network maintenance can be performed simply and clearly through visual pages, achieving standardized operation and maintenance that can be traced and audited.

The changes in SDN architecture also bring about significant changes in network operation and maintenance. The overlay-based network unifies access services, management, and storage traffic, and eliminates the Layer 2 loops of the basic network. The entire overlay network structure breaks the traditional network barriers and can achieve large Layer 2 interconnection of remote data centers. During the operation and maintenance process, you only need to use a graphical interface to uniformly schedule and maintain the service data in the network, and you can perform operations such as loop detection, path detection, and switching service flows, making operation and maintenance convenient and fast.

Intelligence, visualization, and automation are the main methods of SDN network operation and maintenance in the later stage, which can reduce the cost of traditional network maintenance and improve the efficiency of network operation and maintenance.