Question

The SDN and IBN concepts, their benefits

Answer 1

Answer:

SDN concept:

Software-defined networking (SDN) technology is an approach to cloud computing that facilitates network management and enables programmatically efficient network configuration in order to improve network performance and monitoring.

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging architecture that is dynamic, manageable, cost-effective, and adaptable, making it ideal for the high-bandwidth, dynamic nature of today’s applications. This architecture decouples the network control and forwarding functions enabling the network control to become directly programmable and the underlying infrastructure to be abstracted for applications and network services. The OpenFlow protocol is a foundational element for building SDN solutions.

IBN concept:

Intent-Based Networking (IBNS) is the foundation of the new era of networking. The main principle is that the network takes the business intent and automatically transforms it into network configurations for all the devices. It reduces manual operation to the minimum.

IBNS also monitors continuously and adjusts to ensure alignment, providing an extra level of network visibility.

That’s achieved through a closed-loop system that includes policy-based automation, network analytics, and machine learning.

Benefits of SDN :

• Centralised Provisioning: SDN virtualizes both the data and control planes allowing the user to provision physical and virtual elements from one location. This is extremely useful as traditional infrastructure can be difficult to monitor especially if there are lots of disparate systems that need to managed individually. SDN eliminates this barrier and allows an administrator to drill up and down at will.

• Scalability: A good side effect of centralized provisioning is that SDN gives the user more scalability. By having the ability to provision resources at will you can change your network infrastructure at a moment’s notice. The difference in scalability is remarkable when compared to that of a traditional network setup where resources need to be purchased and configured manually.

• Security: An SDN controller provides a centralized location for the administrator to control the entire security of the network. While this comes at the cost of making the SDN controller a target, it provides users with a clear perspective of their infrastructure through which they can manage the security of their entire network.

• Reduced Hardware Footprint: Deploying SDN allows an administrator to optimize hardware usage and work more efficiently. The user can assign active hardware with a new purpose at will. This means that resources can be shared with relative ease. This beats a legacy-driven network where hardware is confined to a single purpose.

• Lower operating costs
• Hardware savings and reduced capital expenditures
• Cloud abstraction
• Guaranteed content delivery.

Benefits of IBN:

Traditional networks lack an automation platform across all the network, relegating its customers to spend significant time on network management and increasing their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

IT Automation is essential for businesses to keep pace in the digital world. Intent-Based Networks help customers tackle their biggest network IT expense – operations – and frees IT time for strategic projects.

The business benefits of Intent-Based Networking are clearly recognized in four main areas:

• Speed and agility. The network is able to rapidly respond to an organization’s needs with little manual intervention.
• IT focus on delivering business value. The reduced time and effort required to maintain the network translates into more time for network innovations that provide real value to the business.
• Reduced risk and continuous compliance. Minimizing the errors and reducing the time spent on troubleshooting.
• Improved automation. It results in faster threat detection and containment, continuous compliance, and reduced downtime caused by human error.

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