Software-defined Networking Technology set to address network downtimes
Software-defined Networking Technology (SDN) is emerging as a potential answer to what is being viewed as a serious problem for businesses, network system downtime.
According to a report by Dynamic Markets, a global research company which had been commissioned by Avaya Inc., businesses in Thailand lost an estimated 10 billion baht in revenue over the last 12 months due to network system downtime.
The British-based company said around 94 percent of their Thai respondents claimed they had experienced unexpected network downtime caused by errors during changes to core networks. The report surveyed 1,000 IT professionals in Thailand, so the figures are quite strong. Somewhat surprisingly, the length of time spent waiting during downtime averaged out at a whopping 144 days.
The solutions marketing manager for Asia-Pacific at Avaya Inc., which is a US-based communications service provider, said SDN technology could address the network downtime problem.
SDN is an emerging technology that is being described as ‘dynamic, manageable, cost-effective and adaptable.’ This makes it ideal for modern high-bandwidth applications.
Basically, SDN ‘decouples network control and forwarding functions’ and this enables network control to become directly programmable. It also allows the underpinning infrastructure to be abstracted for applications and network services.
The growth in the SDN network has been exponential in recent years. Present projections suggest the SDN market in Asia (excluding Japan) will grow from its USD$6.2 million in 2013 to beyond one billion USD by 2018.
Avaya Inc. aims to be among the local leaders of SDN technology and currently offers Fabric Connect. This is an SDN-ready network equipment platform that enables productivity by deploying, implementing, operating and maintaining networks in the most optimal way.
Avaya Inc. believes the SDN market will be one of the key growth engines with the IT business in Thailand during 2015 and beyond. This is due to Thailand’s strong demand for internet and cloud computing services, especially in the manufacturing, retail and education sectors.
That said, Avaya Inc. recognizes that at least half of its expected revenue in Thailand during the remainder of this year will come from contact-centre services.
The company feels the time for SDN technology to emerge as one of the major key’s in the overall industry will be in the period prior to 2018 and certainly beyond as local companies increasingly shift to the next generation network infrastructure.
