The market for Software Defined Networks (Software Defined Networking, SDN) has shown meaningful growth in recent years, as a result of increased industrial demand for a bendy and adaptable infrastructure to Cloud Computing, hybrid environments , the Edge and the proliferation of devices connected to the network (IoT).
According to a report by Expert Market Research, the global SDN market is growing at a rapid rate. After reaching a volume of US$9.2 billion in 2020, it is expected to reach US$35.6 billion by 2026, which is equivalent to a growth of 500%.
And it is that, among the leading advantages offered by software-defined networks are standardization in network administration, automation of each function within network administration and optimization of scalability or ability to adapt to different environments. .
For Alejandro Girardotti, Regional Director of Connectivity and Content at Lumen LATAM, the implementation of SDN “allows the design, deployment and management of the network by separating the control and data planes, abstracting the underlying infrastructure for applications and network services, in order to accomplish the control plane is directly programmable. Therefore, with SDN it is possible to hand sth. out computing capacity to remote sites, move data center functions to the edge of the network, and better support new technologies.”
In this way, as more companies move towards a Software Defined Network configuration, these types of solutions will continue to expand to new industries around the world.
Now, given the impact of Covid-19 on economies, the growth of SDN has been chiefly due to the reorganization of company operations, and the recovery from the impact of the pandemic, which by establishing restrictive containment measures such as work remote, and promote new activities such as telehealth and distance education; led companies from various sectors to face important operational challenges.
In any case, it is likely that the widespread use of SDN will first occur at the edges of the network, and then extend to the infrastructures of the large telecommunications network operators.
In this scenario, Girardotti, Lumen’s Regional Product Director, maintains that from now on the market for Software Defined Networks will become more and more competitive. “Both the new players that enter the market, as well as the big players in the industry, will all look for spaces to innovate and offer differentiated services to achieve competitive advantages that allow them to continue growing. In short, the objective will be to accomplish a greater market share and a sustainable operation over time”.
