HP gears up a strong strategy for the evolving SDN market

Prakash Krishnamoorthy
Country Manager, HP Networking, HP India

SDN has witnessed increased acceptance from enterprises and mid-market customers with the rapid adoption of virtualization and Cloud. Prakash Krishnamoorthy, Country Manager, HP Networking, HP India, shares with VARINDIA the SDN strategy of HP and its offerings and its plans to leverage the market

The networking equipment market in India is growing. Software-defined Networking (SDN) is enabling opportunities that develop new applications which shape how the network functions are secured for end-user or mission-critical business applications. Along this are the opportunities for network integrators and system integrators to put together complex networks that are becoming platforms for next-gen enterprise applications. According to a recent WW IDC study, the SDN market will increase from $360 million in 2013 to $3.7 billion by 2016.

What is driving SDN?

The growing need to deploy new application architecture, cloud services, mobility and network management of large networks of assets is the major driving factor for the SDN market. Some challenges such as programmability, agility, flexibility and centralized control of entire network are best addressed through SDN. SDN finds extensive applications across verticals like Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), Healthcare, Education, Government and Energy, as it extends the power of networking programming to give the application the ultimate control needed to meet the demands of business.

SDN makes the network programmable by separating the control plane (telling the network what goes where) from the data plane (sending packets to specific destinations). It relies on switches and devices that can be programmed through an SDN controller using an industry standard control protocol, such as OpenFlow. While Network Virtualization (NV) adds virtual tunnels and functions to the physical network, SDN changes the physical network, and therefore is really a new externally driven means to manage the network. NV can work on existing networks because they reside on servers and interact with traffic sent to them, while SDN requires a new network construct where the data and control planes are separate.
Apart from data center, SDN can be deployed for video and collaboration applications, converged storage and mobile network service orchestration.

SDN strategy for HP…

The consumerization of IT poses unprecedented challenges to organizations. In particular, the pace and transient shelf life of data have increased attention on the agility and optimization of IT resources. Solving these issues for clients, HP has technology that covers all layers – SDN controller, SDN applications, SDN services and solutions that further strengthen HP’s Virtual Application Networks strategy.

HP’s SDN strategy combines the advantages of centralized controllers for management and orchestration with deep hooks into the hardware platform, allowing customers to take full advantage of the differentiating capabilities and features of their switches. HPN’s Virtual Application Networks strategy blends key SDN technologies with HP’s proven core-to-edge networking approach that provides a single-pane-of-glass management that blends the virtual and physical network. Virtual Application Networks speed application deployment, simplify management and ensure network SLAs in cloud and other dynamic computing models. HP is providing open interfaces for third-party integration as well as end-to-end solutions with HP OpenFlow-enabled infrastructure, HP Virtual Application Networks SDN controller and HP applications. The HP Virtual Application Networks, SDN Controller provides a centralized abstract view of all devices in the infrastructure to automate network configuration.  

The HP Virtual Cloud Networks software enables cloud providers to automate and scale public cloud services for enterprises, by provisioning a virtual private network environment to extend core networking functions with a self-service public cloud infrastructure.

The HP Sentinel Security application automates network access control and intrusion prevention security with existing OpenFlow-enabled switch hardware through a controller.

Partners and SDN

The core advantage behind SDN is better oversight of network bandwidth and general computing resources. However, the technology can bring numerous other benefits with its use as well.
The HP SDN Developer Kit provides HP AllianceOne partners, as well as independent software developers, access to the tools necessary to develop, simulate and validate enterprise-grade SDN applications to sell on the HP SDN App Store. These tools enable partners to –
•    quickly develop new applications directly on the HP VAN SDN Controller using API documentation, developer guide and sample code;
•    test application functionality and interoperability in a ready-made environment that simulates user conditions, with the SDN simulation suite and HP SDN Virtual Lab; and
•    validate newly-created applications to meet HP’s enterprise-grade standards through the HP SDN Validation Test.

samrita@varindia.com