Silver Peak Survey Shows Software Defined Networking ‘Very Important’ to IT Strategy

Over 50 Percent of Respondents See SDN as Important; 40 Percent Will Implement in Less Than Two Years

Singapore. December 3, 2012 – Results of a study conducted by Silver Peak Systems, the leader in accelerating data over distance, revealed that software defined networking (SDN) has become a key ingredient to information technology (IT) strategy.  Results showed that more than half (59 percent) feel SDN is important to their IT strategies and 20 percent consider it “very important.”

The importance of SDN was also reflected in how soon IT managers plan to implement it.  One-in-six IT managers intend to implement some form of SDN in less than 12 months, while 40 percent of those surveyed indicated that they would implement it in less than two years.

“Software defined networking is riding the fine line between promise and hype,” said Larry Cormier, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Silver Peak.  “The biggest issue is the constantly evolving definition of SDN.  Do the results of this survey say we will see mass replacement of physical infrastructure in the next two years?  No.  But what is clear is that enterprise IT professionals are excited about virtualization.  It is a proven path to both capital cost savings and operational efficiencies, which matches exactly our own recent experience as we’ve seen virtual WAN optimization adoption grow 900% in the last year.”

In other results from the study, two-thirds of those polled indicated that their companies were “going virtual” either because of better uptime and high availability (33.3%), or the ability to deliver new services faster (36.5%).  Nearly three-fourths of respondents (73%) are currently using virtualization in their branch offices and nearly all (95%) have implemented virtualization in their data centers. Interestingly, given the choice between physical or virtual wide area network (WAN) optimization in the branch office, the vast majority (81.6%) indicated they prefer virtual.

“This finding certainly reinforces the value, flexibility and simplicity that IT professionals see in virtual solutions,” added Cormier.

The survey also looked at issues around cloud computing. Results show that that one-third of the respondents are currently leveraging the cloud as part of their enterprise infrastructures and nearly 20 percent plan to implement some form of cloud computing in the next 12 months.  When asked about their concerns over the move to the cloud, nearly half (41.8%) were most concerned with security, while one-in-five (20%) were worried about reduced performance.