SDN functions were fit to be tied in a recent Telco Transformation poll that asked: What is the most important function of SDN?
Tying for first place with 28% each were "liberating service providers from proprietary protocols and interfaces" and "speeding up innovation for hardware and software."
Coming in second at 20% was "building an end-to-end orchestrator for next-gen networks," which has been an ongoing topic on Telco Transformation. (See Verizon's Hakl: Gray Boxes Aren't Helping and Orange's Isch: Consolidation of SD-WAN Vendors 'Inevitable'.)
The poll ended with a tie at the bottom as well with both "freeing application developers from proprietary hardware" and "freeing communications service providers from legacy OSS/BSS," each at 12%. (See Level 3's McReynolds Discusses Turning Up Virtualization With SDN & NFV and BSS/OSS: Level 3's Ewert Urges Cloud Centricity for Better Systems.)
We've also trotted out some large numbers in regards to the adoption of SDN and NFV, so here's another recent one: Grand View Research estimated in a recent report that the SDN market would reach $70.41 billion by 2024. (See Report Highlights SPs' Top SDN Use Cases and SDN & NFV Revenues to Top $18B by 2020.)
While the benefits of deploying SDN that attracted service providers were initially the opportunity to lower capex and opex in their networks, the latest wave of interest is geared towards deploying customer premise applications and services such as SD-WAN, virtual firewalls and VPNs.
SDN also offers service providers a "pay as you grow" model, which will come in handy with the increased bandwidth demands from mobile, cloud computing and Internet of Things services and applications.
— Mike Robuck, Editor, Telco Transformation