Last August, this blog looked at the evolving ways that SDN & NFV are focusing on simplicity. For the carrier, new virtualization solutions may make it easier to simultaneously stay competitive and vastly improve ROI.
To enterprises, SDN represents the potential for new network efficiencies, speed, agility and simplicity in a pay-as-you-use model. NFV is sometimes confused with SDN or even considered a competitive technology when it is actually very complementary.
SDN and NFV each offer a new way to design, implement and manage a network and its services. SDN focuses on software intelligence to better implement, manage and pay for the network, while NFV concentrates on optimizing the network services themselves.
Enterprises are demanding network and services that are on demand, software based virtualized solutions ,and that’s forcing the industry to let go of proprietary hardware, single network suppliers and dedicated appliances.
This isn’t just setting the standards for the present, but also giving companies room to adapt to important future developments, like the upcoming advances of the Internet of Things. That’s an important part of the drive to use high-performance SDN solutions, since these are part of the push to “Software Defined Everything,” a term referring to an underlying IT structure that could influence many different aspects of the user experience.
However, this process is still unfolding. In a Computer Weekly article from last year, insurance CIO Ian Cohen said that the idea of basing major decisions around the Software Defined Everything is not necessarily the best, at least for 2015.
Future efforts may see these conditions change as organizations have to serve an increasing number of entities.
“Like so much of the recent vendor/analyst-led tech hype there is an underlying capability that has value and potential,” Cohen said. “The problem, as ever, is that it’s already being oversold. Those who jump too early or move without suitable thought, planning and insight will inevitably get burned.”
That’s why it pays to work with forward-thinking solutions that will apply for years to come. Be sure to return to the CloudSmartz blog to read more about the latest path of SDN & NFV solutions.