How Software-Defined Networking Is Helping Modernize Data Centers

As an increasing number of enterprises upgrade their data centers with the latest software and infrastructure, they are looking at technologies such as software-defined networking (SDN) services to move and protect data. At the same time, organizations increasingly are relying on cloud services for hosting mission-critical workloads. Companies adopting a cloud-first approach also must upgrade their networks, which is strategic to harnessing the power of the cloud. In this eWEEK slide show, Verizon Executive Director of Network & Virtual Solutions Victoria Lonker explains how a network upgrade can reap long-term benefits using SDN.

Software-defined networking enables enterprises to keep up with the changing nature of their businesses and be more responsive to users, customers and market opportunities. A primary driver for implementing SDN technology is to reduce the network complexity caused by the increased movement of apps across mobile and cloud platforms.

Fundamentally SDN is about separating how data is controlled from the flow of the data itself. This abstraction allows enterprises to benefit from network functions virtualization, which enables many of the network jobs that currently exist as dedicated physical devices to become software-based.

A robust SDN strategy enables a network to be elastic and flexible enough to handle high traffic demands while simultaneously prioritizing the most important applications and reducing congestion through intelligent automation.

Companies adopting SDN must clearly define their objectives at the start and set up a robust governance process to ensure the migration to the cloud is successful and internal teams can align on new ways of working to drive ROI.

Predictive analytics help enterprises stay one step ahead by not only knowing how applications are performing in the network but also using that data to explore how to further improve an application’s performance.

Increasing security threats are pushing enterprises to implement multiple security defenses. SDN allows for more sophisticated security systems, coupled with an analytics layer, to eliminate vendor lock-in.

SDN makes it easier to build security into the network layer to protect against potential data breaches, using tools such as the software-defined perimeter (SDP), which uses a “non-discoverability” approach to enable secure access to devices and applications across a public cloud.

Intelligent network systems can be deployed to provide connectivity to the cloud as needed to keep costs under control. That allows organizations to pay only for the service they use, extending the cloud consumption model to also cover the network connectivity layer.

Centralized management allows more agile operations and execution, which helps control costs. Full end-to-end service automation also enables network resources provisioning, reduces error and improves service levels, and uses APIs to deliver seamless, near real-time management of the network functions and traffic.

Transforming the network provides enterprises access to a more sophisticated network feature set and service experience that helps improve operational efficiency by implementing functionality at top speed.