SDNs: the perfect technological backdrop for realising the full potential of IoT

The world of IoT has grown at a breakneck speed. The number of devices connected to the internet increases with every passing year, and forecasts put the installed base in the tens of billions.

An IoT device's general configuration includes a sensor, a processing unit with firmware, communication infrastructure, and an actuator. IoT devices can be standalone, like smart speakers, or embedded within other appliances. One of the challenges with IoT devices is that they are heterogeneous and operate on numerous operating systems. As a result, they pose significant challenges to the existing IT infrastructure in terms of manageability and security.

This is where SDN — Software Defined Networking — can help.

What is SDN?

SDN is a network architecture that allows the network to be controlled intelligently. In this architecture, each network node is programmed using software applications. This enables network operators to control and monitor the network holistically, irrespective of the underlying architecture.

The four pillars of SDN

There are four key areas in which SDN architecture provides benefits to an enterprise.

Network programmability

SDN makes it easy for service or network operators to control the behaviour of the network remotely. As each node in the network can be controlled and programmed by software, operators can customise the network to handle new devices at a granular level. SDN helps to free the network from hardware constraints, making it possible for operators to introduce new services rapidly.

Centralised network control and intelligence

SDN makes it possible to enable smart management of the resources in the network. In traditional network architecture, the mode of control is spread across different nodes. SDN provides centralised network control, helping operators view the network holistically.

Network abstraction

The applications and services that run on SDN technology are decoupled from the underlying hardware and its limitations. With SDN, applications use APIs to interact with the network instead of management interfaces that are bound to the underlying hardware.

Openness

SDN opens the network, enabling interoperability between vendors. It helps in creating an ecosystem of openness.

SDN as an enabler of IoT

SDN gains more prominence as IoT matures and the demands of IoT devices begin to strain the network.

Elasticity: the biggest strength of SDN for IoT

Elasticity describes the changes a network has to absorb to handle the strain placed on it by IoT devices. It can also be described as the agility with which a network responds to data transfer between devices.

The elasticity of SDN becomes more relevant in an era of large-scale data. Traditional networks are not designed to handle the volumes generated by the modern enterprise. When networks cannot handle those volumes, the data becomes a hindrance rather than a help to the organisation harvesting it.

Consider a hospital that is fully digitised and contains a large number of patient-monitoring devices. All of them are connected. A medical device struggling with insufficient bandwidth is not an inconvenience — it is a safety problem. If a monitoring device cannot alert a clinician in time because of poor connectivity, the consequences are severe.

The network must be able to cope with real-time loads. This is not possible with traditional networks that are hard-wired. SDNs, by contrast, are flexible and agile, helping large enterprises deal with real-time network loads.

Bandwidth is not the only issue SDN addresses. Continuing with the hospital example, patient data is strictly regulated. The network must be able to offer end-to-end security to keep that data safe.

Future networks with IoT devices need to be elastic, secure and responsive. These needs are what make SDN relevant.

The foremost advantage of SDN is that it makes the network aware of the applications running on it. If network traffic peaks during a specific time of the day, the operator can route applications to deal with the higher traffic levels — and can build a policy so that apps are optimised during peak times automatically. It becomes straightforward to fine-tune the network's bandwidth because of the elastic nature of SDN.

Another feature of SDN is quality of service. By using specialised switching, operators can create preferential treatment for packets within the network.

SDNs are a good match for IoT

SDN provides the elasticity and agility that IoT requires. The network's open nature also paves the way for the development of tools and software to control and monitor IoT devices more effectively.

If you are building out an IoT estate and the network underneath it is becoming the constraint, that is exactly the kind of problem our network engineering team works on.