The network is becoming software defined

7/27/2019 The network is becoming software defined

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The network is becoming software definedRob Bamforth, Principal Analyst

QuocircaComment

The network is becoming software

defined

http://www.quocirca.com 2013 Quocirca Ltd

When John Gage of Sun Microsystems coined the

term the network is the computer in 1984, it

seemed to effectively sum up the distributed

computing paradigm that was overhauling the

old world of mainframes and minicomputers. For

long enough it looked pretty accurate, so much

so that Cisco tweaked it a little further although

less formally into the network is the platform.

But is it still true? Perhaps not.

The rot set in some time ago. When in the early

1990s a bunch of waggish Sun employees

created a tee-shirt (one of hundreds over the

years), which proclaimed the network is the

network, the computer is the computer, Sun

apologises for any confusion, it seemed like a

reasoned return to sanity, but now this

statement is profoundly inaccurate in both

clauses.

First, the computer is no longer what it once

was. Some might try to argue that we are not

yet in a post-PC era, but tablet sales beg to

differ. Googles Eric Schmidt, who recently

admitted to being surprised by the tablet boom

said It looks to us like the majority of enterprise

computing is being done on mobile devices, in

particular on tablets. That broke the old model.

If the enterprise is going that way, then it is only

keeping up with where the consumer has already

gone.

Beyond the portable single pane of glass, thereis also a surge in small smart connected devices.

Sensors and intelligence in objects that do not

have users attached to them the internet of

things is creating significant interest or success

in many areas from smart metering to self-

drive cars. This will continue to grow and while

not always strictly mobile, it is clear that a good

deal of intelligence is being pushed to the

network edge.

At the opposite end is the core. As IT has

evolved into a utility or service provider-like

model, the core has had to become dramatically

more agile. Mainframes, server rooms and even

blade hardware no longer scales sufficiently

quickly or flexibly to deal with the vagaries of

demand and constraints of budget.

The core has become more and more virtualised.

Stage one was within the racks of hardware and

operating systems; stage two was across the

network and into the cloud. However, the

evangelical hype of universal application service

provision so popular during the dotcom boom

has not quite turned out to be so simple. The

concept is great, but the reality is occasionally

flawed.

It turns out that some public cloud providers

have periods of downtime, some might be

compelled to pass on data to their governments,

and as happened recently, some go to the wall

although it should be noted that on premise IT

can suffer in exactly the same way. The principal

of the cloud-like core is sound, but like any IT

project its use should be properly architected

and based on a well-thought out strategy before

reaching for the credit card and diving into the

implementation. Service provision requires a

good understanding of both the qualities of

service and the lifecycle of provisioning.

Connecting core and edge should therefore be

the place for the network, right?

No. There is no network; there are many

networks and layers of interconnectivity,capabilities and demands. Just like the core and

the edge, there is multiplicity and variety; wired

and wireless, public and private, fast and slow,

and lots of different protocols.

Is it the landscape of a single solution or single

vendor? No, but there are expectations of

simplicity, uniformity and standardisation.

Connectivity from the edge to the core must be

seamless. It shouldnt matter how many or what

types of networks are used or touched, this must

not be visible in the experience at the edge.


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Roaming, handover, re-authentication are

services the networks must keep to themselves.

Network performance should always be adequatefor the task in hand. Given the huge numbers of

users, their sudden changes in usage patterns

and variety of application demands, achieving

this is no mean feat. Services need to be

dynamically provisioned on demand, capacity

monitored and traffic shaped to match resources.

Intelligence is vital. While much of the demand

cannot be predicted, much of its impact can be.

Data can be collected and assessed in real-time,

trends noted as soon as they start and action

taken. Problems can be identified, isolated and

worked around, as they happen.

The fact that this does not smack of wires, light

pulses and radio spectrum is not accidental. The

network is no longer the network or the

computer it has become software. That bringsboth opportunities, but also challenges in the

areas of standardisation, transparency and

openness.

However, there is no going back, the future of

the network will be software defined.

This article first appeared onhttp://www.computerweekly.com


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