Software-defined networking has been championed by many telecom officials as the future of the industry. In addition to providing a number of cost benefits by decoupling the network control plane and allowing administrators to be more judicious about implementing new components, SDN allows organizations to use their network resources more effectively. This feature holds a great deal of promise for telecoms that want to distinguish themselves by providing a better quality of service to their customers. The flexibility and customization possibilities presented by SDN can be used to dedicate more bandwidth to high-priority users, keeping major clients satisfied with their carriers.
Demand for SDN solutions is on the rise, with more organizations considering investing in this technology. As Packet Design CTO Cengiz Alaettinoglu noted in recent guest post for RCR Wireless, there are several performance benefits that are driving interest in SDN including demand placement applications and rapid provisioning. With SDN-based tools, carriers can replicate content for localized users, increasing the quality of the service delivery while simplifying the process for the telecom. Furthermore, SDN enables carriers to make changes and scale up network offerings with greater ease, allowing them to respond to new requests quickly.
Huawei makes industry breakthrough
Due to the clear value of implementing SDN technology in a telecom environment, it's no wonder that many companies are making major strides in this field. The latest organization to have a breakthrough in SDN development is Huawei. The company recently announced its landmark Flow Engine product, which stands as the industry's first carrier-grade SDN traffic optimization engine. According to company officials, Flow Engine offers centralized monitoring and control over a telecom's network resources, allowing administrators to dynamically allocate resources and optimize performance with relative ease.
Because Flow Engine operates within a centralized capacity, it provides full visibility across a carrier's entire network. Current distribution systems take a narrower view of network operations, preventing network operators from seeing how localized changes can disrupt traffic flow elsewhere. Huawei technicians have reportedly devised a number of techniques to reduce the amount of time needed to address network issues and improve the responsiveness of traffic-shaping applications. These include graph transformation, matrix reduction, linear programming decomposition as well as a unique algorithm designed to make traffic optimization possible on a carrier-level network. In a controlled environment, Flow Engine was able to improve a network's throughput as much as 60 percent. Huawei expressed confidence that the technology would be capable to handle the workloads presented by future carrier SDN networks.
SDN continues to be one of the most exciting developments in the telecom sector, offering a whole new method for carriers to enhance the speed and quality of their services. Industry observers can expect more companies to pursue this technology and its applications.
