Making SDN Ready for Prime-Time: How Hybrid Switches Will Enable the Move from Hype to Reality

Software-defined networking (SDN) is here, but it seems to encompass a good amount of hype around the many challenges it can help companies overcome and the benefits it provides.  In today’s world of connectivity, filled with cell phones, tablets and other smart devices, everyone wants to avoid a slow, overloaded network. By decoupling the network control plane from the data plane, SDN allows network administrators to easily respond with a global view to the real-time variations in network traffic in order to increase customer satisfaction and retention.

Enabling switches and routers to be more protocol friendly and easier to use, SDN also allows companies to avoid worrying about the origin or make  of the switch, as the control plane software can be supplied by any third party, similar to the way a laptop can come from one company while the operating system comes from another. In short, SDN simplifies control of the network, makes networks more agile and creates opportunities for increased automation by virtue of its programmability. It is clear there are massive benefits to SDN, but why isn’t everyone jumping on the SDN wagon?

Unfortunately, the move to SDN is not an overnight transition and the legacy systems must be maintained even as companies move to a new approach. Each system will respond to the transition uniquely, so there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to adopting SDN. As companies consider how they will approach the transition, the first question that must be answered is, “If it’s not broken, why are we fixing it at the cost of additional resources and time?” Users are hesitant to throw out existing equipment, especially if the current system is still working.

Additionally, there is a lack of interoperability between existing and future equipment. Today, existing equipment is monolithic, with the control plane and data plane running on the same device, and is not interoperable with SDN protocols such as OpenFlow™. The lack of interoperability between old and new slows the transition, since it cannot be done gradually.

Enter hybrid switches. This category of equipment offers a temporary solution by overcoming some of the communication problems and allowing the transition to happen gradually and SDN to begin moving from hype to reality. A portion of a hybrid switch enforces SDN for example, OpenFlow, while another portion of the switch deals with the traditional protocols of existing equipment. While hybrid switches bridge existing and new equipment, this is only a temporary solution to combat the challenges of transition until all switches are SDN-compatible, taking advantage of the many benefits the technology provides. There are also some disadvantages that come with the hybrid nature of this transitional equipment such as complexity, system costs and performance limitations.

With the implementation of hybrid switches, SDN will become a mainstream technology within the next 5 years. Once this transition begins, the greatest opportunities for SDN will lie in data centers, where network traffic is largely isolated and users continue to require constant access to their data; telecom, where the ease of use and programmability will reduce the burden of increasing traffic on the network, efficiently engineering the traffic; and the enterprise, where SDN can help reduce the costs associated with network maintenance.

We are an active member of the Open Network Foundation and work with ONF to develop and drive the OpenFlow protocol. With hardware and software options, including the VortiQa SDN software solutions and QorIQ LS2 family, we can support companies looking to make the switch from traditional networks to SDN, regardless of whether they used a mixed or hybrid approach to do it.