A good 20 page readup of the SDN market
Some extracts from the article..
The basic definition of SDN, as defined in a 2012 GigaOM Pro report, is:
1. Separation of control and data plane. This is when the intelligence of the switch or router is split from the packet-forwarding engine. Typically control will be handled centrally while data transport will be distributed.
2. Programmability, or the ability to centrally change traffic flows, partition the networks, provide application level quality of service (QoS), and improve network flexibility.
Leading SDN use cases in the enterprise- Public Cloud
- Private cloud
- Wide-are networks (enterprise)
- Network management
- Network security
- Networking slicing
- Ultra-low-latency networks
Opportunities for SDN services fall into two buckets: professional services and support services. Professional services are offered to enterprise customers to plan, build, migrate, and operate SDN technologies either in a greenfield installation or for the migration of an existing traditional network. Support services are services offered to manage and maintain an SDN product.
As with most new technologies, SDNs come with significant barriers to adoption.The IT community faces the following challenges to SDN adoption:
Immature standards
Lack of interoperability
Lack of tools
Need for training
Legacy migration
Impact of the channel on the forecast
SDN technology suppliers can make initial SDN sales to large cloud hosting providers, financial institutions, and other leading-edge enterprises. However, to reach the other 80 percent of the market, vendors must enable their channel partners to sell SDN to small and mid-size enterprise organizations.The effectiveness of the channel to sell SDN to a broad market audience is a key factor in determining the size of the SDN market in the upcoming three-to-five-year period.
Doyle Research and GigaOM Research predict that the enterprise SDN market (as defined by this report) will reach
$320 million in 2014 and grow to $2.45 billion by 2018