Cloud computing has caused some companies to modify their IT infrastructure and maintenance procedures and may eliminate their current hardware altogether. Conventional methods of setting up a switch or router may be error-prone and unable to make full use of the capabilities of current network architectures. As many intelligent networking designs as possible must be developed for intellectualization, activation, and customization in future networks. Due to software-defined networking (SDN) technology, it's possible to control, secure, and optimize network resources, eliminating the rigid coupling between the control plane and the data plane in traditional network architectures. Here, the chapter explores the problems, difficulties, and potential solutions associated with software-defined networks (SDN), a novel concept in computer networking. Through SDN, the network gains the ability to be programmable, quick, and adaptable thanks to its separation of data and its ability to control traffic.
TopTraditional Networking
A traditional network is constrained by both the size of the network and the requirements of various services. It is important to note that these requirements cover reliability, virtualization, flow management, engineered traffic, and implementation of policy requirements.(Al-Haddad & Velazquez, n.d.) There has been an increase in the complexity of network architecture and management over the last few years. We are in the process of connecting everything, thanks to enabling technologies like cloud computing, portability, and newly emerging ideas such as IoT (internet of things)(Al et al., 2022). Due to the complexity and reliability of these new concepts, improved data center infrastructure as well as more bandwidths are required, as they call for a simpler, more resilient network infrastructure. For managing network traffic, the most widely used type of networking is traditional networking, which uses switches, routers, as well as dedicated hardware with fixed functions to provide network management services (Haji et al., 2021) The gadgets on this list perform different functions and complement each other to provide support to the network as a whole. It is common for traditional networks to suffer from issues of scalability as a result of their inherent nature. In the majority of switching hardware and software, provisioning APIs are rarely if ever available, and most of the switching hardware and software that are available are proprietary and difficult to access. It is important to note that traditional networks and proprietary provisioning software are very much compatible with each other. Unfortunately, traditional networks cannot be modified regularly, while hardware-centric networking may not offer all the features that traditional networks can offer.(Jimson et al., 2017). In traditional networking, the functions and functionality are implemented in multiple ways, including the use of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), dedicated hardware, and dedicated devices that use switches, routers, and application, delivery controllers. With the increase in popularity of the internet, traditional networking solutions are not able to keep up with the computing demands of modern society, so to be able to keep up we need to increase our agility and flexibility to function effectively (Sezer et al., 2013). As far as these objectives are concerned, software-defined networking (SDN) appears to be able to achieve them.