By Preeti Wadhwani
Recent research by Global Market Insights finds that the software defined networking (SDN) market share will be valued $88 billion USD by 2024. According to the research firm, increased adoption of the cloud services and IT convergence are primary factors driving market growth. A rapid surge in the adoption of cloud services has occurred in the past five years. This is driven by its capability to provide an enterprise-wide array of resources utilized to scale, orchestrate, and support operations.
Cloud computing untethers the underlying infrastructure and applications, offering a level of dynamism that did not exist in traditional infrastructure. Furthermore, as the demand of cloud computing increases, it puts pressure on the network to cope with the flexibility, scalability, and programmability of this virtualized model. This results in ample use cases for SDN and fuels the demand for SDN market solutions.
Need for SDN
Increased adoption of SDN solutions among telecommunication service providers also fuels market growth. Mobile traffic is increasing rapidly, and end-user needs are also evolving.
This encourages telecommunications to pursue new network technologies to support the surge in the data traffic and connected nodes. To address the challenges of the traditional network infrastructure, SDN architecture is proposed. It provides an efficient multi-tier network platform that decouples the data plane and network control and provides centralized control meeting the requirements of both evolving and future mobile networks.
Cloud service providers are one of the major end-users of the SDN market solutions. They leverage the capabilities of SDN to develop a cloud inter-network for increasing the scalability and flexibility of the cloud computing platforms. It provides a dynamic network infrastructure that modifies the traditional network into an excellent service delivery platform. Furthermore, SDN adoption in the cloud enhances the security, network manageability, and dynamism in the data center—fueling market growth.
The Asia Pacific SDN market is estimated to be the fastest growing region due to the adoption of the cloud services. The investment by telecommunications service providers in the region for enhancing the network infrastructure is a primary driving factor. For instance, China’s telecommunications giants—China Unicom, China Mobile, and China Telecom are set to invest more than $180 billion USD by the year 2023 on 5G infrastructure, which is estimated to augment the growth of the market. In addition, improved internet penetration, mobile subscription, and smartphone adoption back the growth of the SDN market.
The manufacturing industry is estimated to witness substantial growth during the forecast timeline. The growth of the market is attributed to the increasing digitalization in the manufacturing industry as well as the need to improve operational efficiency and reduce capital expenditure.
SDN increases the operational flexibility of manufacturing by enabling the acceleration of the application deployment and reducing an organization’s IT cost through workflow automation. The approach also offers the capability to reduce capital expenditure by lowering the cost of switches, routers, and other hardware components. These are major factors augmenting demand for the SDN market among manufacturers.
Leading Vendors
Major vendors present in the SDN market include AT&T, IBM, HP, Cisco, Big Switch Network, Intel, Juniper, Huawei, Arista Network, NEC Corporation, Extreme Networks, Pluribus, Pics8 and Plexxi. Mergers and acquisitions are set to be the most common strategies used by the market players to improve their product portfolio, gain technical expertise, and acquire workforce. For instance, in 2015, Cisco acquired Embrane, a data center SDN solution provider, to strengthen its position in virtualization and SDN market.
SDN Growth
The adoption of the cloud services and IT convergence drives market growth for SDN. The technology supports the growth of telecommunication service providers that drive mobility.
For further information on the growth of SDN and related markets, visit Global Market Insights, Inc. SW
Preeti Wadhwani is an industry analyst for Global Market Insights, Inc.
May2018, Software Magazine
