Five reasons why your business needs software-defined networking

Many large customers face a daunting dilemma. On the one hand, they have never been under more pressure to be agile as they face rapid transformation and disruption in their major markets. On the other hand, the expansion of the IT ecosystem, coupled with cloud deployments and the massive increase in applications and devices, has made their networks more complex, especially given traditional IT infrastructure.

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It's this paradox that's driving the rapid adoption of software-defined networking (SDN) - the automation and virtualization of network operations. In our research, based on a survey of 165 senior IT leaders, we found that 15% of organizations have already deployed this emerging technology or have begun piloting it. But importantly, the pace of SDN adoption is expected to accelerate rapidly: within the next two years, 57% of organizations will choose SDN.

These statistics clearly reflect what we are seeing in the market, with companies telling us that flexibility in large business models will be key to their survival.

Five drivers of change we see most often:

1. Innovation is stagnating due to the lack of scalability of the network

Our latest research found that nearly one in two organizations cited the need to extend network functions as the primary business trigger for adopting SDN, ahead of other catalysts. This statistic is not surprising at all; our customers need a network that is flexible enough to support the business as each function tries to respond more quickly to changing market conditions.

This challenge is industry agnostic: In nearly every industry imaginable, businesses are trying to support an increasing number of applications and devices as they add new capabilities to their products and services. Network capacity and complexity often impede this growth, or at least delay a business’s ability to innovate.

SDN offers a potential solution to this problem. It provides a way to manage network functions from a central location, enabling changes to applications across multiple devices from a single device, rather than device by device. This significantly reduces the time required to scale as an organization's needs evolve.

2. Market opportunities are being lost due to lack of speed

Ultimately, any IT strategy must be based on its intended business outcomes, which means it should support competitive advantage. In a market where windows of opportunity are becoming increasingly short, this advantage will be lost if companies cannot innovate quickly.

This is a key driver for the adoption of SDN. SDN is a centralized, policy-based way of managing IT assets, which means that enterprises can innovate faster. Each new application can be pushed out from the center, and the device can automatically configure itself through the link with the controller and the new policies that have been set.

In a world where customer needs must be met, but change rapidly and unpredictably, SDN can bridge the "fail fast" mentality gap we increasingly see. New products and services must reach target markets faster and can be updated or replaced at any time.

3. Companies want to innovate quickly

Companies also told us that having the agility and flexibility to improve services across the business is critical. Therefore, the speed of SDN deployment is seen as another driver of SDN adoption.

It is critical to enable each business unit to move faster independently. In many of the businesses we work with, it is not uncommon to hear that different departments are trying to innovate independently of each other, only to find that their IT infrastructure does not allow them to move forward at the speed they desire. This is frustrating for business users who need to access on-demand services outside of work.

In this context, the emergence of SDN further encourages an organization’s ability to innovate. This innovation is reflected in the extent to which it can experiment and launch new initiatives, both internally and for customers. SDN provides a practical solution to network complexity that would otherwise threaten experimentation and transformation.

4. Security issues hinder creativity

In a world where organizations have never been more aware of cybersecurity and threat levels are increasing, the fear of a major breach or failure can inhibit innovation. Businesses worry that moving too fast or working with new partners will expose them to more vulnerabilities. Understandably, their response is to focus on resiliency, but this often to the detriment of improving service agility across the business.

SDN can enhance enterprise security in both technical and practical aspects. On the one hand, a fully enclosed network that carries encrypted traffic is inherently more secure than an enterprise's traditional network solutions. On the other hand, SDN provides organizations with the opportunity to build existing application security into users' virtual environments.

This means that enterprises can better manage their IT resilience while meeting their urgent need for innovation.

5. Efficiency is critical to long-term innovation

If failing fast is a key tenet for many organizations in this new world of transformation, then failing cheaply is also the way it works. As they try out new applications and pilot new products and services, businesses can quickly become overwhelmed by expensive and cumbersome IT infrastructures.

SDN is managed centrally, eliminating the need to reconfigure individual devices for each new iteration of an application, which could have tremendous value. But the longer-term opportunity may be to adopt SDN as part of a move toward network transformation, as enterprise-grade virtualization will provide a lean, efficient organization for the challenges of the next five years and beyond.

Link to this article:

https://www.verizonenterprise.com/verizon-insights-lab/VES/five-reasons-why-your-business-needs-software-defined-networking