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The Top Five Reasons to Deploy Software-Defined Networks and Network Functions Virtualization

May 2014

Prepared by:

Zeus Kerravala

The Top Five Reasons to Deploy Software-Defined Networks and Network Functions Virtualization by Zeus Kerravala May 2014

ZK Research ººº ºº ºº ººº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ººº ººº ºº ºº ººº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº ººº ººº ºº ºº ººº ºº ºº ºº ºº ºº º

A Division of Kerravala Consulting

Introduction: Business Agility Depends on Network Transformation The mandate for technology leaders has changed more in the past five years than perhaps any other position in the business world. Just a half decade ago, IT leaders were tasked with ensuring the technology infrastructure was running smoothly and could support the business. Today, IT executives from service providers and enterprise organizations are discovering that their goals are now in alignment with the goals of the business (Exhibit 1). Business agility is at the top of every CEO’s priority list. To accomplish these goals, IT agility must become an imperative as well. Much of today’s IT environment—including compute, storage and application infrastructure—already has become more agile. However, IT agility cannot be realized fully until the network reaches the same level of agility. This is one reason why many leading enterprises and service providers have begun to deploy a network fabric. The fabric can make the network a flexible and scalable resource.

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Exhibit 1: Line-of-Business and IT Leader Goals Are Tightly Aligned

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Source: ZK Research, 2014

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Technology executives should begin considering the network fabric as a foundational component of network agility and examine technologies that can evolve networking to the next level, including Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). Network fabrics provide significant benefits, such as simplifying network deployments, lowering management costs and increasing network utilization. However, network fabrics are only part of the solution for transforming the network because they primarily address network transport. The next step for enterprise IT leaders is to create flexible network services such as bandwidth optimization, network overlays and software-based routing. Service providers should focus on enabling the rapid creation of services such as VPN, firewall, NAT and routing to protect customer data and add revenuegenerating services. NFV can be leveraged to rapidly create or migrate network services, while SDNs can be a complementary technology that orchestrates network policies, better secures the network, and increases the integration between network and IT

infrastructure. Shifting to SDN and NFV and pairing them with a network fabric will enable the most significant network transformation ever.

Section II: Defining SDN and NFV SDN and NFV are complementary technologies that can be used in conjunction with a network fabric to bring the same level of agility to the network as other areas of IT. To understand how to best leverage the technologies, it’s important to understand the differences between them. In SDN, the data-forwarding capabilities and the control plane have been decoupled from one another—enabling network management to be centralized as opposed to the traditional box-by-box management methods used today. Moreover, management processes can be streamlined to reduce human error, which is the largest cause of network downtime (Exhibit 2). This approach ultimately can improve user performance in enterprises and help service providers avoid customer churn.

Exhibit 2: Human Error Is the Largest Cause of Network Downtime



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Additionally, with the use of northbound APIs, SDN enables applications and networks to become more aware of and talk directly to each other. These improved interactions can enable applications to redefine network settings such as ACLs, QoS settings and path optimization as required. SDN also utilizes southbound APIs and standardized protocols to act as a “network middleware” layer that creates a single, common control point for network infrastructure such as routers, switches and application delivery controllers. NFV provides the ability to run key network services as pure software workloads. This means any network service—such as routing, a VPN or a firewall—can be decoupled from the physical platform on which it typically resides. With NFV, instead of sending IT staff to a physical location, such as a branch office, to deploy a physical appliance, the network service can be created on demand—similar to the way virtual servers can be created using virtualization technology. For service providers, NFV can enable rapid creation to protect or optimize customer networks. Using NFV significantly increases the agility of these functions because they can now be migrated from location to location along with virtual compute workloads or storage. This ensures that all the network services associated with specific applications will remain intact as IT departments increase the mobility of virtual servers. Managing physical infrastructure in remote locations is an operationally intensive process. Therefore, any business with multiple locations should use NFV in branch offices by software-enabling routers. The difficulty in managing branch technology on a location-by-location basis is the primary reason why it’s nearly impossible for companies with even a moderate number of branch offices to maintain consistent services in each location. For service providers, the value of NFV is both the security and the cost savings it provides. NFV enables service providers to quickly create a secure, virtual firewall that their customers can use to protect cloud services from outside threats. This can be done in a fraction of the time it would take to provision a physical appliance, increasing both agility and cost effectiveness. Organizations using site-to-site VPN will also benefit because it creates the ability to add more utility-based resources and increase capacity outside the local data center.

The combination of SDN and NFV running on a network fabric can improve network operations across the entire corporate network, including the branch, campus, data center and wireless networks.

Section III: The Top Five Reasons to Adopt SDN and NFV There are numerous reasons why companies should utilize SDN and NFV in conjunction with a fabric architecture. SDN and NFV improve the dynamism of the network, create fluidity of network services and improve network management. However, there are five crucial reasons why service providers and enterprises should make SDN and NFV an imperative today: 1. Optimized user experience: The data center’s evolution into a more agile environment is important for businesses today. However, data center transformation is largely undertaken to improve IT processes. Using SDN and NFV extends the value of network agility to the entire network, and ultimately to the entire workforce. SDN and NFV can deliver a consistent, reliable and high-quality experience to all users, which has a significant impact on worker productivity. This is crucial for network managers; a 2014 ZK Research study revealed that improving the user experience is now the top management initiative for network professionals (Exhibit 3). It can also help service providers differentiate themselves in a fast-growing competitive landscape. 2. Alignment of IT infrastructure with business goals: Today’s business leaders are focused on enabling higher levels of worker productivity and improving business agility while lowering the overall cost of running IT. Achieving this can be a daunting task because the IT environment has become increasingly complex. For decades, IT leaders have had to make trade-offs and choose products that either reduce costs or improve productivity because products rarely accomplish both. SDN and NFV can help create an environment where IT leaders no longer have to choose between IT projects that can either control cost or boost worker productivity. 3. Automation of IT processes: ZK Research reveals that the average lead time to deploy new applications is four months—hardly the definition of an agile business. This lag can cause service providers to fall behind the competition, and cause enterprises to miss out on new business opportunities. The long deployment cycle is attributed to the human latency caused by the


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manual coordination among various IT silos. The process of making changes to the infrastructure can be equally long and business impairing because the challenges related to process coordination also exist with change management. In contrast, using SDN and NFV enables IT processes to be orchestrated and streamlined or even fully automated based on business policy. Now when applications require changes to the server, storage and network tiers, the changes can be made simultaneously from a centralized management console. 4. Cost-effective, optimized application performance: With legacy IT models, IT executives often faced a difficult decision. One choice was to overspend on the network, provision it for peak utilization, and have it sit nearly idle the majority of the time. The other choice was to manage costs and provision the network for normal usage, and risk poor performance at peak times. The combination of SDN and NFV now allows IT leaders to provision the network at normal levels and then dynamically add resources when required. This

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optimizes application performance because applications will have the right level of network resources during normal and peak usage periods while reducing the size of the spare hardware pool. 5. Reduced infrastructure costs and service complexity: With traditional networks, each location typically requires dedicated devices for each network service, no matter how small the location. This means each branch office would have its own separate router, firewall, VPN device and other devices to deliver all the services required. This “service chaining” is highly inefficient because each device must be configured individually, which increases management and troubleshooting complexity. In contrast, NFV enables multiple servers to run on a single hardware platform, reducing both troubleshooting and provisioning times. Service providers will increase the profitability of their services by leveraging SDN and NFV to reduce operational costs and hardware costs.

Exhibit 3: Improving User Experience Is Top of Mind for Network Managers




Service providers and businesses should consider not only the immediate benefits for the network, but also the long-term role that the network will play in the era of cloud computing. Combining SDN and NFV with an underlying network fabric architecture provides an excellent foundation for IT to leverage the cloud in order to shift to an “as-a-service” model.

 Shift the network to a fabric architecture. Implementing an underlying network fabric is the first step toward improving network agility. IT leaders should deploy SDN and NFV in conjunction with a network fabric. This enables greater flexibility in network transport and the services that run on the network.

Section IV: Conclusion and Recommendations Business agility is now an imperative for service providers and enterprises because the ability to roll out new services quickly is a key competitive differentiator. Virtualization has had a significant impact on the computing industry, but the network has lagged behind. Businesses can only be as agile as their least agile IT component. Therefore, technology professionals must now look to NFV and SDN to increase network agility and bring the network into alignment with the rest of IT. The network is the only pervasive resource, and it connects all IT resources to users and devices no matter where they are. However, to continue providing effective support, the network must evolve. For organizations looking to capitalize on a network that is more flexible and cost effective, SDN and NFV will position the network to become the key point of competitive differentiation. This introduces new criteria for selecting network architectures and solution providers. IT decision-makers must shed legacy thinking and move the decision criteria away from aspects such as market share and incumbency, and focus instead on attributes such as how resilient the network is, to what degree the network simplifies the infrastructure, and how the user experience is improved. With this in mind, ZK Research makes the following recommendations for companies looking to implement SDN and NFV:  Simplify the network architecture. Enterprises and service providers should migrate away from a predominantly inflexible, hardware-based architecture to one that leverages the flexibility of software. This, in turn, reduces complexity and creates a network that is easier to manage through the use of automation and orchestration tools.  Choose solutions that are standards-based and open. Implementing SDN and NFV requires a large ecosystem of solution providers. A network built on closed, proprietary technologies may not be able to interoperate with all the necessary ecosystem vendors. A standardsbased, open solution guarantees the broadest range of choice for customers. © 2014 ZK Research: A Division of Kerravala Consulting All rights reserved. Reproduction or redistribution in any form without the express prior permission of ZK Research is expressly prohibited. For questions, comments or further information, e-mail [email protected].

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