SDN – the newest technology on the Horizon

IDC predicts the SDN global market to be around $3.7 billion by 2016 from a $360 million at present. While globally it has created quite a hype, it being in its maturity stage has not been able to create the wonders yet in India. Will its uptake rise with time?

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) used to be a relatively new term a year back. The adoption rate is still not the highest but is believed to soon attract the attention of customers who are looking for scalable data centers and mobility. In terms of the market size in India, Gartner states that server, storage and networking market amounts to approximately INR5,300 crore, out of which at least 5–10 per cent must be SDN-centric decisions.
“Market adoption, including in India, is at a very early stage, so it’s difficult to estimate. Operators in India are particularly concerned with architecting their networks for advanced mobile backhaul and I believe that SDN will help lay the foundation for more high-performance backhaul networks in India,” replies Ryan Perera, Country Head, Ciena.
Sajan Paul, Director – Systems Engineering, India & SAARC, Juniper Networks, observes that the Indian business today is now accepting SDN as a serious investment decision. “We have done a number of sessions for the CIOs and teams. The feedback we received showed that it is a great technology but people preferred to wait and watch. This approach has changed over time and we are seeing some real deployments happening now.”

Abhijit Potnis, Director Technology Solutions – India and SAARC, EMC

Tarun Kaura, Director – Technology Sales, India, Symantec

Prakash Krishnamoorthy, Country Manager, HP Networking, HP India

Ryan Perera, Country Head, Ciena.

Subhasish Gupta, Country Manager – India & SAARC, Allied Telesis, however, feels that, across the market as a whole, the uptake of SDN is quite low as it is a technology that is primarily relevant to the service provider and data center markets today. “The primary reason for this is that there are compelling reasons to deploy SDN in carrier and data center environments that don’t exist in the enterprise today. Technology managers in the enterprise are grappling with challenges around resourcing and network management that are unlikely to be overcome by SDN,” he says.
However, it is important here to note that SDN is not a product but rather an emerging architecture driven towards a dynamic, ultra-manageable, adaptable and, more importantly, an “open” networking platform. “The industry realizes that there are two important technologies that go hand in hand, namely SDN and NFV (Network Function Virtualization). Customers today are ensuring that their newer infrastructure purchases are all SDN-ready,” explains Edgar Dias, Regional Director, India, Brocade.
Nevertheless, vendors are optimistic about the future and growth potentials of software-controlled infrastructure in India. “No segment is feeling the impact more than the telecommunications industry, which is one of the core markets for SDN solutions. Hence, we see great potential in this area. India is amongst the top ‘mobile’ population and there is large part untapped – rural telecom. The carriers and NEMS along with the government are looking to expand in this space and this is where we see the unique opportunity. Practically, India will be positioned amongst ‘early majority’ if not ‘early adopters’,” says Murali Ramalingam, Country Manager & Senior Director – Sales, Ixia.
“With changing business dynamics, customers today are looking at data centers to be more agile to give the right resources to the right users, in the right way. This led to the phenomena of Software defined everything – of which Software-Defined Networking (SDN) enables an organization’s network to be more elastic, agile, and dynamic, allowing them to keep pace with rapidly-changing consumer demands,”  explains Tarun Kaura, Director – Technology Sales, India, Symantec……………………….See More