According to data growth statistics, over the coming years we will experience a tremendous jump in data generation and consumption. Cisco forecasts that global cloud traffic is expected to grow 4.5-fold. That amounts to a 35% CAGR --from 1.2 zettabytes of annual traffic in 2012, to 5.3 zettabytes by 2017. Overall, Cisco expects global data center traffic will grow threefold and reach a total of 7.7 zettabytes annually by 2017.
If those numbers seem impressive, consider that the International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that the Internet of Everything will amount to an $8.9 trillion market in 2020. To co-ordinate IDCs estimated 212-billion things, data centers will need to shoulder the burden. This clearly puts the onus on networks to support the enormous volume of data that is being transmitted across channels. As customers, demand for bandwidth increases, there is a need for a strong network infrastructure at the back-end and intelligent devices to minimize the service latency and support this data growth.
Within this context, Software Defined Networking (SDN) is likely to reshape the telecom industry in new and interesting ways. Telco Chief Technology Officers and Chief Information Officers worldwide are facing enormous pressure on IT spending, which will have an impact on their SDN strategy. However, they cannot ignore the tremendous benefits SDN would bring in terms of agility, flexibility, and cost savings (both capex and opex), as enterprises are shifting from physical infrastructure to cloud based infrastructure.
