While much of the focus on software-defined networking (SDN) has been on the technological benefits it brings, potential challenges are beginning to trouble some SDN watchers.
This is according to Gary Newe, technical director at F5 Networks, who notes while many businesses acknowledge the benefits of SDN are too big to ignore, there are challenges to overcome, particularly with the cultural changes that it brings.
The adoption of SDN is expected to rise in 2016 as service providers and enterprises show more interest in this technology solution, says Huawei.
Andy Robb, CTO at Duxbury Networking, says while a number of vendors have climbed aboard and brought SDN-based products and technologies to market, it hasn't been plain sailing.
The myriad variants of SDN technologies now flooding the market are, ironically, proving counterproductive, to the successful uptake of SDN, he adds.
Michael Howard, senior research director for carrier networks at IHS, says due to the newness of SDN technology and the fundamental changes it brings to networks, there is an incredible demand for expertise to design, deploy and operate SDN-based services, and carriers are looking to vendors for this expertise.
Newe says the cultural changes required to embrace SDN outweigh the technological challenges.
The metaphorical wall separating network operators and software developers needs to be torn down, he adds.
He points out the network operators need coding skills and software developers will need to be able to program networking services into their applications.
There's another element to consider when it comes to software-defined networking - that is technology development and its culture, says Newe.
Much of what drives software-defined networking is open source, and dealing with that is something many businesses may not have a lot of experience with, he adds.
"Software-defined networking represents a huge disruption to the way businesses develop technology. It makes things faster, easier and more convenient during the process, we well as from a management and scalability point of view going forward."
What's needed is a framework that gives users the flexibility to deploy SDN as they please - with switches and other components from a vendor of their choice, says Robb.
There will be challenges - there always are when disruption is on the agenda - but if they can be overcome, SDN could well usher in a new era of technological development, says Newe.
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