![]() Some optimization can be achieved without pure SDN but not all. In that way, different levels of abstraction can deliver on the SDN value propositions on different levels. In that way, OF or P4 is an abstraction based on forwarding API, while a more traditional approach of network automation is an abstraction built on top of traditional APIs. One of my posts gives some evidence on that. We’ve seen more improvement in the industry in the last 10 years than in the last 30. This has significantly improved feature velocity in the industry. In fact, the most valuable goal of SDN is to decouple innovation cycles, in other words, you can improve your network control independent from underlying technologies. Further, there are different levels of abstraction where this separation can be built upon:īecause of this separation, you can decouple innovation cycles and optimize your network with a global view of the network for example. From that premise, the term has been thoroughly misused in the industry. It means a specific group of ideas in computer networking, mostly established around the abstraction and separation between the control and data plane. When researchers refer to SDN, they don’t mean any network defined by a software, that’s too simplistic. As a result, much of the technical merit of SDN has been lost in the noise. This ambiguity was leveraged and exacerbated by a litany of companies trying to re-brand products under the “SDN” umbrella and effectively join the SDN bandwagon. However, the term is perhaps misleading because almost all networking devices contain a mix of hardware and software components. The term SDN was first coined in an MIT Technology Review article by comparing the shift in networking to the shift in radio technology with the advance from software defined radios. ![]() It comes from the article “SDN is DevOps for Networking” by Rob Sherwood, written in 2014. The following excerpt is an obligatory reading to understand SDN.
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