A study by market research firm, IHS found that network operators around the globe are moving toward software-defined networking (SDN). IHS via a survey among Operators that represent 49 percent of the world’s telecom capex and 46 percent of telecom revenue, found that 82 percent of service provider respondents have either already deployed SDN, are now deploying SDN, or plan to evaluate it this year.
“The successful field trials and a few commercial deployments of SDN in the last year keep moving toward more commercial deployments in 2015, still mostly on a limited basis as operators put one or two use cases to the test under real-world conditions in their live networks,” said Michael Howard, senior research director for carrier networks at IHS. Carriers are starting small with their SDN deployments and focusing on only parts of their network to ensure they can get the technology to work as intended.
According to IHS, the number one reason service providers are investing in SDN is to simplify and automate service provisioning, which they believe will lead to service agility and quick time to revenue. Various barriers are becoming more prominent as operators get closer to commercial deployment, with respondents citing that integrating SDN into existing networks and immature technologies and products as the top 2 barriers.
IHS added that operators want SDN in most parts of their networks, with the top domains for deployment consisting of cloud services offered to customers, within and between data centers, and access for businesses
