The Problem with SDN

Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.

Software defined future.  As our environments increase in complexity and demand faster response time, manually managing allocation of resources in the IT infrastructure becomes impossible.  A software defined network, one that senses and reacts instantly, is the current solution.  But recently, TechTarget published a blog about the Five Reasons IT Pros are Not Ready for SDN investment.  In it, the author suggests

SDN is slowly becoming a reality in supersized enterprises that need high performance networks at any cost, but the landscape is quite different among large and medium-sized organizations.

The 5 reasons for the slow adoption are:

• No. 1: Security and monitoring performance- there are a number of security issues ranging from inaccurate MAC addresses to ease of circumventing the hyperdriver security.
• No. 2: Proving automation and DevOps work- Organizations lack the resources in DevOps to take their existing provisioning systems to that level necessary for SDN
• No. 3: A lack of familiarity- the tech is new and therefore not as well-known as older technology.
• No. 4: No standard SDN or skill set- since there are no real standards in SDN at this point, its unclear what specific skill sets are needed and IT pros are hesitant to gain skills until they know what’s needed.
• No. 5: Selling SDN to decision makers- SDN has not taken off because it requires a massive amount of time, money and hardware and selling it to the Board is not yet on the CIO’s agenda.

What reasons do your IT pros give for not moving forward with SDN?

That’s a WRAP!  Have a wonderful weekend!