I think to some extent the theory that commoditization is driving SDN is part of why some of the larger players initially were either slow to adopt or conversely were quick to detract. If you view SDN as an existential threat to your business, it is reasonable to go only begrudgingly (and kicking and screaming).

But I don’t believe that commoditized networking hardware is driving SDN. With this post in mind, I jotted down some of my own thoughts.

http://www.plexxi.com/2013/02/sdn-and-commoditizing-the-network/

The switching costs, network effects, and sunk costs fo building IT networks all contribute to the low adaptation of SDN and Openflow this year

Let Cloud take greater hold within Enterprises first then you will see SDN and Openflow take off !

Theo Harvey
http://providingcloudyservice.com/?p=170

Thanks for the interesting article regarding the battle for mindshare in the Software-Defined Networking industry. The necessity of a standardized data plane abstraction protocol, like OpenFlow, is a great subject for immediate discussion.

There is a small camp of one or more incumbent vendors that have built wonderful 60-70% gross margins, profiting immensely from their customers by maintaing the complexity and obscurity implied with traditionally vertically integrated networking switches and routers. They will fight tooth and nail to maintain that complexity and obscurity that is totally eliminated by a standards-based data plane abstraction protocol, like OpenFlow. They will use every possible marketing resource to spin their vendor-specific extensions of protocols to appear as software-defined networking.

Meanwhile, there is a growing counter-camp of vendors that is fighting to drive change towards a novel networking architecture that employs standards-based approaches to programming and managing networks via a centralized controller. Such an architecture drives massive operational and capital cost efficiencies for customers by eliminating vendor lock-in to particular vendor hardware. It also allows for dramatic improvements in programmability and automation, which is increasingly needed in the modern cloud data center.

This is the battle ahead in the quest to control the “Software-Defined Networking” category leadership. As an industry, we can act like sheep and continue to believe the FUD and lies of certain incumbent vendors, or we can be bold and embrace a new architecture that brings networking into the modern world of software automation and programmability. The choice is ours. Let’s beware of the stakes at hand in this emerging battle of architectures.

Regards
Jason Matlof
VP Marketing, Big Switch Networks

I think the commoditization discussion is slightly off. Commoditization basically means that there are equivalent products whose only differentiation is price. There is nothing inherent in SDN that prevents capability (or even performance once you get into path optimization) differentiation.

SDN very likely will lead to reduced hardware costs, but those costs don’t disappear. They shift. I would think that the price shifts to orchestration and workflow automation applications built using SDN technologies (OF, PCE, BGP-TE, whatever). What you end up with a shift in pricing mix where the hardware is no longer the dominant monetization vehicle and software is attributed more value.

This shouldn’t be a surprise though. If you look at the major vendor R&D spends, it is already heavily skewed towards software, even in the vendors that have significant ASIC shops.

If the networking vendors intercept this by offering more software (and every indication is that they will), then we basically just change the pricing and move on. SDN will give users far more for their dollar, but I don’t think it will lead to a major inflection point in overall solution spend.