How the telecom, banking and IT services segments can benefit from SDN?

Sonal Desai

The biggest hurdle to any new technology implementation is networking because it takes time to set up, configure, policies, etc, thereby delaying implementation of major projects.

Enter SDN

Software-defined networking (SDN) has two benefits.

Tactically, it reduces provisioning time of networks, and increase network agility. Strategically, the network hardware has become a commodity as the software has entered the network. For instance the cost of 10 G which was earlier available for $500, has now come down to less than $100, reveals Naresh Chandra Singh, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner.

Secondly, Because the networks are automated, SDN reduces the number of people required to provision workloads by using templates.

Consider the competition, says Singh. From 12 odd companies offering networking solutions earlier, today, we have more than 100 companies, mainly start-ups providing only app stores, and this is a paradigm shift. Because of start-ups, automation has taken on a new definition, and enterprises are now realizing the full potential of SDN.

So who are the early adopters?

Telecom: The telecom segment is witnessing a major transformation. Because of the Open Internet, they have become pipe providers, where as content providers like Google are eating all the meat, remarks Singh.

Therefore,many telecos are entering the data services market, especially cloud and hosting; so once you scale up, and compete with Amazon and Azure, you employ the same network and platform. For this, the telcos are looking at network function virtualization (NFV), which is tightly pitched with SDN, and is the logical progression for the telecos.

Tata Communications has already come out with its first RFP.

Banking: Banks that have gone virtual are looking at the next step where they are driving self services. Because of RBI guidelines and specially focus on data security, many banks are facing challenges while virutalizing their data centers. SDN here, is a good option because of policies and cost.

Education: Many large universities are using SDN. The Indian Institute of Hardware Technology (IIHT), is one of the earliest example of SDN implementation.

IIHT has deployed a cloud for its learning-as-a-service offering. But when they implemented the cloud, networking was a major hurdle. They therefore, looked at SDN. SDN not only reduced the provisioning time from two days to a few hours, but by using templates, IIHT has been able to replicate the technology to other organizations in minutes. This has reduced the TCO of the cloud platform by 40 percent, and has reduced the cost of its learning-as-a-platform by 30 percent.

As a result, IIHT has been able to provide multiple pricing models and has been able to expand globally; it has seen 60 percent more users in the last one year.

IT services: For an India-based IT services organization, SDN provided the flexibility it was looking for.

For instanace, the BPO which has deployed SDN is now sharing the same network for multiple shifts. The major benefit is that the BPO does not have to reprogram their PC after each shift as they just plug and replace the programmed network templates of the SDN. The BPO has not just seen savings, but it has also scaled up its business significantly.