Almost half of US businesses have no plans to adopt SDNs, according to a recent survey undertaken by Juniper Networks. The survey of 400 IT “decision makers” in government, education, financial services and healthcare, conducted this month by Wakefield Research, found that 47.5% have no plans to implement the technology.
Factors dissuading adoption of SDN may include cost, which 50% cited as a challenge or potential barrier, difficulty integrating existing systems (35%), security (34%), and existing lack of skills (28%). Of the 52.5% that plan to adopt it, 74% plan to do so within the next year, while 30% said they plan to implement SDN in one month.
Says Juniper Senior Vice President of Strategy and Marketing Mike Marcellin:
As with many emerging technologies that came before, Software-Defined Networking has spurred significant debate in the networking industry. In the wake of billion-dollar acquisitions, several industry watchers believe SDN is poised to revolutionize the traditional networking market, while others claim that it is significantly over-hyped.
But when Juniper Networks asked enterprises, we found the truth lies somewhere in between…at least for now.
The biggest benefit of SDN is improved network performance and efficiency, which was cited by 26% of the respondents. Next was simplified network operations (19%), followed by cost savings on operations (13%).
The Holy Grail of SDN seems to be high availability and resiliency, which 30% said they were looking for. Next was analytics and reporting, followed by automation and rapid provisioning, and then open source options and scale.
In five years, over ¾ of respondents – 77% — believe most business networks will include SDN technology, with 63% expecting a mix of software-defined and “traditional” networking, the Juniper survey found. Says Marcellin:
I think this stems from companies’ desire to evolve their current networks and workflows, not rip-and-replace for the “next big thing.”
Source: NetworkWorld