There are compelling reasons to choose a software defined network (SDN) – centralised and simplified control, agility, lower cost, easy scaling, a future-friendly solution…
But in our opinion, the most important part of the specification should be openness.
Traditional proprietary providers may deliver an SDN, but you’ll be tied to using only vendor accepted tools and protocols to monitor and drive the infrastructure. A truly open solution such as Cumulus allows you to use a variety of respected tools such as Chef, Puppet or Ansible to deploy, manage and maintain the whole infrastructure.
It’s also really easy to simulate your entire network estate using virtualised Cumulus. This helps when validating any new topologies or protocols before making any changes to the production network – clearly that cuts the risk of failure and associated downtime.
You can also achieve massive capex savings – as much as 50% – when you build a network with merchant silicon platforms (bare metal switches), instead of traditional vendors’ “black box” devices.
Still feel you should stick with a proprietary vendor?
Despite the obvious benefits, organisations are understandably cautious about moving away from a traditional proprietary vendor.
There are big questions to ask – which operating system should you choose? Which hardware vendor is the best fit? What level of support can you expect and can it be relied on?
Vespertec has a great deal of experience in the field, enabling us to streamline your transition to open networking. We have close relationships at both software and hardware level to be able to consult and advise on the best solution for your particular use case.
