In a just issued report, the firm states:

“Whether microservers, software-defined switches, enterprise flash, or other next-generation datacenter enablers, these technologies often share similar purposes and goals. These technologies typically have the following characteristics:
• Drive power efficiencies from a total platform perspective.
• Lower the overall datacenter footprint.
• Seek to eliminate redundant or nonessential hardware and components.
• Commoditize hardware, thus driving value into “select” software and semiconductors. This new hardware attempts to eliminate the need for custom, purpose-built hardware (example: routers, switches), instead replacing this with a common but versatile computing/switching platform.
• Drive the commoditization of hardware through the scaled use of non-branded component based hardware solutions in distributed datacenter architectures (i.e., white box servers, switches provided by reference designs from the Open Compute Project [OCP]).
• Attempt to replace ASICs with “open” merchant silicon and/or drive advanced functionality into general purpose CPUs (i.e., OpenFlow enables the transfer of the control plane into the CPU).
• Seek to utilize and optimize “open source” software and hardware alternatives (OpenFlow, OpenStack, OpenCompute hardware reference designs).
• Increase infrastructure flexibility through a software approach (example: network function virtualization).

Increasingly, service providers, large enterprises, and Web-based business are working to accelerate the innovation necessary to adopt the types of commoditized support storage, routing, switching, and computing platforms available to hyper-class providers. Our research leads us to believe that the next generation of network and datacenter hardware will blur the boundaries between routing, switching, and computing, thus providing movement toward a single hardware platform on which network and compute functions will be defined through software.

This type of platform approach to networking, particularly with respect to the service provider segment, became increasingly obvious at Mobile World Congress (Barcelona) this year as it was one of the major topics of conversation during multiple carrier keynotes.”

“SDN, is a concept that essentially extracts the logical topology of a network from a switch or router and places it in a central repository or database, simplifying the networking topology and making the network easier to manage. SDN essentially splits the functions of a switch or router into two logical functions. It separates the control plane from the forwarding plane. The result drastically simplifies the networking hardware necessary to make a network operate, while making the control plane, or the intelligence of the network, much more flexible. OpenFlow is an important piece of the SDN puzzle and serves as a protocol that delivers the information from the control plane to the forwarding plane. While SDN will likely prove beneficial to all types of organizations, we view SDN as particularly attractive to service providers and large, scaled datacenter operators as a platform from which to launch new SaaS-based services more quickly and easily.”

FBR states and forecasts that: “Web companies moved toward SDN first, carriers moving now, perhaps enterprises later. Thus far, Web-based companies have served as the largest proponents of SDN technologies, and we expect this to continue for the foreseeable future. The demands that Web-based giants have placed on traditional switching networks have stretched networks to their limits, resulting in excessive operating costs and technical constraints to growing business models. SDN presents a much cleaner and more streamlined network solution for these customers.

Our checks indicate that nearly every top 10 service provider is intently focused on the benefits SDN solutions provide.”

Source: BIG “switches:” little SERVERS–FBR’s Holistic View of the Coming Datacenter, written by FBR Technology, Media & Telecom research group

Cisco is trying to respond to the SDN threat with their Open Network Environmnet (ONE)- a portfolio of Cisco  technologies and open standards that brings programmatic control and application awareness to the network, combining the benefits of hardware and software across physical and virtual.

http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/trends/open_network_environment/index.html    

A Cisco Sr VP recently said that SDN will be a “game changer” for data centers:

Juniper Networks say they’re executing on their SDN vision by centralizing network management

The company announced a 4-step roadmap to SDN last month:

Their CEO explained the companies SDN plans in this story:

Juniper has a free SDN Whitepaper you can download after filling out a form at: http://www.juniper.net/us/en/dm/sdn-wp/