FEATURE: SDN
applications, reduces IT costs and
operational errors, and helps make
businesses more agile. It also helps
in improved network performance,
through the ability to manage the endto-end network. The result is a modern
infrastructure that can deliver new
applications and services in minutes,
rather than days or weeks required in
the past. In addition to helping reduce
operational expenditure, SDN will also
help create new revenue streams in
future.
Thanks to network abstraction and
automation there is a reduced network
operations workload, SDN enables
companies to grow their network to
meet demands, and to scale back if
and when necessary. IT departments
can apply a change once, and it is
distributed across all of the networks,
scaling delivery, and driving new
business models and growth.
Organizations that have embraced
Cloud or virtualisation in their data
centre environment or have started
the journey down that path are the
ones that benefit most from SDN, as
it gives the customers the promise
of achieving in their network what
virtualisation has given them in the
data centre. The increased emphasis
on cloud computing is placing new
demands on the network. For cloud
services to be seamless, the underlying
network must be intelligent, carrierclass and virtualised.
Benefits of SDN
Applications are increasingly
virtualized and distributed, and
need to support both rapid and
continuous delivery – driving a shift
in communication needs within
the data centre, and transforming
IT infrastructure. SDN simplifies
and accelerates the deployment of
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Challenges
Skills shortage is one of the major
challenges when it comes to SDN and
IoT. In order to capitalise on these
technologies, enterprises will need welltrained and skilled staff. Cisco predicts
that approximately 220,000 new
engineers will be needed globally every
year for the next ten years to keep up
with the technological surge of IoT.
This is a gap that must be filled if the
potential of IoT is to be realised.
Adoption in the Middle East
The Middle East is very much at the
forefront in adopting SDN. We are
seeing strong demand for SDN from
industries with complex networks that
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