[AusNOG] SDN

[Skeeve Stevens]

My view on SDN is...

- In the enterprise space - Like BluRay, it will win the battle and lose
the war.  Enterprise networking for the most part will move more and more
to the cloud where the foundation is already sitting on top of SDN and that
will be for your cloud providers and Virtual X-Connect Fabrics to worry
about.

There will be products, but little use for SDN in the Enterprise unless
someone productises something of enough interest (unlikely) ... and at the
moment, there isn't too much.  Kind of like the IPv6 argument.  Right now
there is no killer-app that most enterprises MUST have to go SDN in-house.
The skills are also rare for the most part, so enterprises aren't going to
take a risk on technology where they can't get the necessary skills to run
it - for whatever reasons they might use SDN.

- In the carrier space - It is already making a massive difference to some
carriers offerings and will be the foundation of all carrier and service
provider networks in the next few years.  SDN will make hardware vendors
irrelevant in the next couple of years as Whitebox switching takes off and
network equipment takes the path of Servers - tin with little to no
value-add.  Soon it won't matter what kit you use - it will just be ports
and wires, all centrally controlled.

If you are a classic Network Engineer with no *nux or programming skills
and you aren't planning on learning these things soon, then prepare for a
new career in the next couple of years as no one will want you, or your
value will worth far far less.


...Skeeve

*Skeeve Stevens - *eintellego Networks Pty Ltd
skeeve at eintellegonetworks.com ; www.eintellegonetworks.com

Phone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeeve

facebook.com/eintellegonetworks ;  <http://twitter.com/networkceoau>
linkedin.com/in/skeeve

twitter.com/theispguy ; blog: www.theispguy.com


The Experts Who The Experts Call
Juniper - Cisco - Cloud - Consulting - IPv4 Brokering

On 18 November 2014 11:40, Brad McGinn <bmcginn at thiess.com.au> wrote:

>  Hi All,
>
>
>
> I thought I’d send this to the AusNOG list to see people’s opinions and/or
> experience in the matter of SDN; in carrier land and even in enterprise
> land.
>
>
>
> I assume cloud providers would be a big advocate for SDN and ‘Networks
> with APIs’ but I’d really like to get an idea of how much take up at
> present is in the industry.  Does SDN have a home in carrier networks?  Is
> it already there?  Does it work as expected?  Was it hard to setup?  Did
> google really get it right with openflow?
>
>
>
> My limited knowledge in the area leads me to believe that SDN will be a
> big help in automated network management with integration into things like
> VMWare and so on, but that to me sort of assumes Data Centre networks will
> be the focus.  Am I reading things wrong here or will all network devices
> (smart or dumb) eventually be expected to take part in SDN if required; in
> not just DC but any kind of network; be that a network of anything, or
> specific networks like carriers and so on?  With big hardware vendors like
> cisco and Juniper facing a thing that may demote their ‘smart hardware
> devices’ into forwarding engines, do you think there’ll be a change in
> their mantra of ‘sell sell sell hardware’ or will they keep pushing that?
> Will they run both races for a while or do you think they’ll change focus
> completely?
>
>
>
> Forgive my ignorance, I’m just trying to get a handle on what the industry
> professionals (rather than vendors) are seeing and what they’re doing with
> SDN, if anything at all?  I know there are many people on this list with
> great knowledge and exposure to cutting edge stuff in bother carrier, cloud
> and enterprise networks and I’m hoping to tap that knowledge for a brief
> time.
>
>
>
> Any comments welcome.
>
>
>
> Thanks all.
>
>
>
> Brad
>
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