Technology & Patterns

I recently joined CFN Services (check it out – despite my new bias – cool stuff :).  At CFN Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) is a massive topic.  Our CEO, Mark Casey (LinkedIn), talks about how prevalent dematerialization is.  Below, Peter Diamandis (Mr. Dematerialization) talks about how many things we used to have are now mere features of your phone:

We are about to see this in explosive fashion as what the industry calls Network Function Virtualization (NFV) or the dematerialization of the data center.

Below is a Google Trends plot of the following terms from ~2005 – Today:

• SDN (Software Defined Networking)
• SD-WAN (Software Defined Wide Area Networking)
• NFV (Network Function Virtualization)
• OpenFlow (a technology that enables software defined networking)

and…

• Cisco (the 500 lb gorilla in networking

What’s happening with Cisco?  I think two things:

1. Cisco has become synonymous with mission critical networking
2. Buyers think less when there’s a safe choice AND when taking a risk has no upside

There’s a new game coming to town in SDN (wait, what does SDN really mean?).  This is a new game, there is perceived risk which is tempering early adoption.  However, when it gets safe it will quickly dominate networking?  Why?  There are huge opportunities to take out cost and add agility to networks.

If you believe (as I do) that all companies’ end state is as a software company then all companies will need a kick ass network.  Private MPLS-based WANs are NOT that kick ass network.

SDN, SDWAN, accelerated SaaS – these are the ingredients in tomorrow’s kick ass networks.