FEATURE: SDN
Software Defined
Networks (SDN) represent
a monumental shift
in how networks are
managed. As the move
from a hardware-based
system to a software one
gains market traction,
traditional networks are
being transformed.
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industry experts four different questions to
find out more.
Ashraf Sheet, Regional
Ashraf
Sheet,
Regional
Director,
Middle
East and
Director,
Middle
East and Africa
Africa at Infoblox
at Infoblox
Secondly, with the adoption of SDN, there is
a blurring of lines between applications and
services and the networks that they ride on.
This will require new organisational models
in terms of accountability, responsibility
and governance. The organisation needs to
determine if it is culturally agile enough to
be able to realign internal teams to meet
these requirements.
S
oftware-defined networking is an
important enabling technology
for the digital workplace. It
enables a network infrastructure
that is more reliable, agile and cost-efficient
than legacy networks, making it ideal for
today’s cloud and mobile era.
In the Middle East SDN is certainly making
an impact. In the words of one of our
contributors, Ashraf Sheet, Regional Director,
Middle East and Africa at Infoblox: “I think
we have the opportunity in the Middle East
to leapfrog other parts of the world as we
don’t have a lot of legacy infrastructure and
as a result the transition and migration isn’t
as complicated.”
He adds that for many enterprises in the
Middle East, SDN is in its infancy as they are
still in the virtualisation stage.
“Moreover, this virtualisation is specifically
in the computing and storage space,” he
said. “But we have some work to do in
the networking space because while the
technology is there, the ecosystem and
architecture isn’t mature yet.
With SDN seen as the future of enterprise
networks we asked Sheet and three other
Firstly, the organisation should define
exactly what SDN means for its enterprise;
what is the disruption that it will cause, how
does it map to what is already available on
the market today and finally, and probably
most importantly, what will be the benefits
of making the switch to SDN.
Finally, SDN is a multi-vendor, multi-
technology platform and the organisation
needs to ensure that the SDN vendor it
chooses can support a rich ecosystem of
integration and interoperability.
Ahmad El Soufi, SE Manager, Aruba, a
Ahmad El Soufi, SE Manager,
Hewlett
Packard
Enterprise Packard
(HPE) company
Aruba,
a Hewlett
What questions need to be
addressed before making the
move to SDN?
Enterprise (HPE) company
When it comes to trends, I like to draw the
analogy between technology and fashion:
what is in vogue one day is out the next
(and sometimes back in again). The point I
am trying to make is that in the technology
world, we shouldn’t just adopt trends
because they are cool.
There always has to be a business case: the
trend needs to cause sufficient disruption
in productivity or in the way we do business
and the current economics before we decide
to adopt the new technology. What are the top factors that
need to be considered when
the transition is made to SDN?
So to that end, before an organisation decides
to make the transition to SDN, it should take
into account three critical considerations: An end-to-end model incorporating
data centre, campus, branch and
mobile networks
Reliability and agility
for the cloud era
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