A key enabling technology for the next stage of enterprise data networking is Software Defined Networking (SDN). Standards-based and vendor-neutral, this emerging open architecture is dynamic, manageable, cost-effective, and adaptable.

As recent global disruptions to business operations have made abundantly clear, enterprise customers need easier-to-configure, -provision, and -maintain enterprise networks (WAN, LAN, and emerging edge networks). 

Cataloging the pain points

Existing enterprise data networks share a number of challenges:

• Lack of automated manageability: Enterprises face skyrocketing costs around operating their traditional networks, which take longer to provision and troubleshoot. The well-documented shortage of network engineers magnifies this problem.
• Security: Proprietary hardware/software solutions, coupled with too many legacy manual processes, makes managing security laborious, complicated, and error-prone. Again, a skills shortage for cybersecurity talent exacerbates this problem.

SDN can resolve many of these difficulties. Parallel to the cloud transformation of computing and storage a decade ago, SDN provides a  software layer above legacy network hardware and software. SDN promises to deliver a slew of “core-to-edge” applications and services.

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The mainframe is sometimes often pigeonholed as being an old, dying platform. If that’s true, then how do you explain the fact that mainframes process 90% of the world’s credit card payments and more daily transactions than Google search? Or that two-thirds of Fortune 100 companies use the mainframe as their core platform, along with 45 of the top 50 banks, four of the top five airlines, and seven of the top 10 retailers? Or that 90% of executives and practitioners say the mainframe is a platform for growth?

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As they start a complicated digital transformation, moving from siloed enterprise systems to integrated multicloud services and core-to-edge applications, organizations face an unprecedented increase in threats and vulnerabilities. These threats are multiplying rapidly, affecting business processes and operations, data, operating systems, hardware, applications, networks, endpoints, and employees.

The vulnerability/threat landscape has dramatically expanded for several reasons:

• Complex, aging technical infrastructures that contain a hodgepodge of systems and vendors are increasingly unmanageable.
• A deluge of new devices is being deployed at the network’s edge.
• Bad actors have grown increasingly sophisticated and now seek to breach networks, applications (on-premises or cloud-based), and backups, using a wide range of cyberattacks, including AI-enhanced malware.
• There is a serious (some would say emergency) talent shortage of cybersecurity personnel.
• The rush to embrace work-from-home (WFH) and work-from-anywhere (WFA) arrangements for employees has exposed a multitude of security gaps in both infrastructure and user training.
• Regulatory frameworks for data protection, cybersecurity, and privacy keep changing.
• The strategy for disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) has not kept pace with the industry-wide shift to cloud and multicloud services.
• As data becomes more distributed, ubiquitous, and valuable, ensuring availability, integrity, and confidentiality becomes more challenging.

The urgency to address these issues flows from the expectation of near-zero downtime and data loss to support digital experiences of customers, employees, and partners.

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