System and Network Management Software
Software-defined networking (SDN) is an approach to computer networking that allows network administrators to manage network services through abstraction of lower-level functionality. SDN is meant to address the fact that the static architecture of traditional networks doesn't support the dynamic, scalable computing and storage needs of more modern computing environments such as data centers. This is done by decoupling or disassociating the system that makes decisions about where traffic is sent (the control plane) from the underlying systems that forward traffic to the selected destination (the data plane).
SDN was commonly associated with the OpenFlow protocol (for remote communication with network plane elements for the purpose of determining the path of network packets across network switches) since the latter's emergence in 2011. Since 2012, however, many companies have moved away from OpenFlow as a single-solution, and have embraced a number of different techniques. These include Cisco's Open Network Environment and Nicira’s Network virtualization platform.
SD-WAN is an emerging Wide Area Networking (WAN) technology that is an implementation of software-defined networking.
