SDN Benefits. Simplified.

SDN solutions from multiple vendors were analyzed and the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) savings were found to be 20 to 80%.

Similarly, CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) savings were 10–40% and the OPEX (Operating Expenditure) savings range from 10 to 80%.

Quick example to understand CAPEX and OPEX for those who do not have idea about them. The purchase of a photocopier would be CAPEX, but the purchase of toner and paper are OPEX.

SDN is only expected to grow and take over all other forms of traditional networks. It might change. It might expand. It might evolve. But SDN is the future of networking.

Benefits of SDN

➡️ Automation and Programmability

Because SDN natively focusses on programmability using REST API for many of its functions, there is greater emphasis to automate and program the network. And SDN provides the right tools to do that. Additionally, it supports integration with most of the automation technologies like Ansible, Python and Terraform, among others.

➡️ Virtualization and Multi-Tenant Infrastructure

SDN provides even greater flexibility in implementing virtualization and multi-tenant infrastructure. Without SDN, managing such complicated environments is a big challenge. SDN automates and simplifies the management of such infrastructure.

➡️ Integration with Public Cloud

Related to virtualization, SDN is more commonly utilized in big public cloud environments like AWS and Azure. The reason is cloud computing depends on virtualization of infrastructure and the better way to manage it is through centralized controls like SDN.

Similarly, enterprises can extend their SDN to cloud environments and manage the whole infrastructure as one single entity.

➡️ End to End Management

Managing all your physical and virtual network devices from a centralized controller. Troubleshooting, health checks and upgrades, all can be done from SDN controller.

➡️ More Secure than traditional network

When correctly designed and implemented, SDN can control security throughout the infrastructure which is a mix of physical and virtual environments using tools which might not be available in traditional networks.

➡️ Low Operating Expenditure Costs

Routine network administration tasks can be centralized & automated resulting into lower operational costs.

➡️ Low Capital Expenditure Costs

Use of less expensive hardware switches with intelligence centered at SDN controller. The ability to shape and control data traffic results in enforcing quality of service (QOS) in the network fabric delivering guarantees on performance for applications.

➡️ Vendor Neutrality

Most SDN solutions claim to be open to integration with multiple vendors with options to customize and fine tune how they work. This makes SDN flexible to integrate with any vendor or customized software and hardware.

This was a brief overview of the benefits of SDN in general. Different vendors implement SDN in different ways.

Hope that helps! Thank you!