Software Defined Networking is a Networking Design that Separates the Control Plane from the Data Plane, giving Networks Increased Programmability and Flexibility

Software Defined Networking

Software Defined Networking is a network management solution that enables dynamic and programmatically efficient network design to improve network performance and monitoring, making it more cloud-like than traditional network management. This allows operators to control the entire network in a consistent manner, regardless of the network technology used. Using this approach, network administrators can regulate data flow throughout the entire network rather than just individual devices. This also makes it relatively simple to create secure data flow pathways.

SDN technology is a network management strategy that allows for dynamic, programmatically efficient network design to increase network performance and monitoring, making it more like cloud computing than traditional network management. Software Defined Networking is designed to address traditional networks static architecture. By decoupling the forwarding of network packets (data plane) from the routing process, SDN seeks to consolidate network intelligence in a single network component (control plane). The control plane is made up of one or more controllers, which are the brains of the SDN network and contain all of the intelligence. However, centralization has limitations in terms of security, scalability, and elasticity, which is the primary concern of SDN.

The decoupling of network control logic from the devices performing the function, such as routers, which regulate the movement of information in the underlying network, is known as Software Defined Networking. This method streamlines the management of infrastructure, which can be customized for a single business or partitioned to be shared by numerous. SDN uses controllers that sit on top of network gear, either in the cloud or on-premises, to provide policy-based administration. 

The network control plane and forwarding plane are technically separated from the data plane (or underlying infrastructure), allowing the organization to directly implement network control. This is in stark contrast to standard data center setups. A router or switch, whether in the cloud or physically in the data center, will only be aware of the status of network devices close to it in a typical setup. The intelligence is concentrated and widespread with SDN; it can see and control everything.