SDN Is No Longer Just About the Hype, Quinstreet Survey Finds

SDN Is No Longer Just About the Hype, Quinstreet Survey Finds

The software-defined networking market is moving beyond the hype, with more businesses using or planning to use SDN in the near future, a Quinstreet survey finds.

Planning for a Future With SDN

Thirty-nine percent of the 466 IT professionals surveyed said they either are currently using SDN technology in their infrastructures or are planning to within the next 12 months. Another 10 percent said deployment will come in the next 13 to 24 months, and 25 percent said they plan to deploy, but don’t yet have a timeline.

NFV Also Has Growth Potential, but VLANs Hitting the Ceiling

Forty-three percent of respondents are running virtual LANs (VLANs), but that isn’t surprising given that they’ve been around for three decades. However, relatively few are looking to deploy them down the road. Meanwhile, 16 percent have deployed NFV, and 22 percent expect to do so within the next 24 months.

Cost Reduction Is the Key Driver Behind SDN …

According to the survey, the top benefits for SDN are costing savings (53 percent), improved network performance (47 percent), increased productivity (46 percent) and improved security (45 percent).

… And the Top Challenge

Forty-seven percent said cost savings was the top challenge in deploying SDN, followed by integration/interoperability (42 percent), security (37 percent) and choosing the right deployment model (35 percent).

The Cloud and SDN

Of the three top deployment models—the cloud, virtual switches and bare-metal systems—28 percent are choosing the cloud, thanks to the ability to easily update networking appliances. Thirteen percent said virtual switches, and 6 percent picked bare-metal systems.

But It’s Not an Either/Or Choice

Fifty-three percent of respondents said they are using a combination of the three deployments models.

The Cloud Makes Parts of SDN Easier

The top reason for deploying SDN in the cloud? Sixty-nine percent said it makes updating network appliances much easier. Other reasons include partitioning IP/Ethernet addresses into multiple subnetworks (58 percent), multitenancy/cloud support of networking services (56 percent), and removing routing intelligence and traffic management from devices (56 percent).

Once in the Cloud, the Choice Is OpenStack

The open-source cloud platform—with its Neutron networking project—is very or extremely important, according to half of the respondents. That’s especially true for larger enterprises and small businesses, though only about a third of midsize companies feel that way.

Tech, Telco Top Industries Deploying SDN

Nineteen percent of respondents using SDN came from the tech industry, and another 12 percent from telecommunications. Eleven percent were from banking and financial services, 9 percent each from education and manufacturing, and 8 percent from federal, state or local government.

Cisco Getting the Most Business Right Now

Forty-five percent of respondents said they are currently using Cisco’s SDN technology, while another 36 percent said they were either in the early stages of consideration or the request-for-proposal (RFP) evaluation stage. Cisco was followed by Citrix Systems, VMware, Dell and IBM.

Big Customers Buying From Big Vendors

Larger enterprises are most likely to buy SDN products from large networking vendors, while midsize companies are more likely to look at the channel and niche suppliers.