A Literature Review on Challenges and Effects of Software Defined Networking

Network technologies have always been a crucial part of success for technologies like cloud computing. But due to the slow development of a scalable IT infrastructure, this can lead to issues in competitiveness. Software defined networking (SDN) can thereby counteract such issues by giving new functions to the whole network topology. With SDN, administrators have the possibility to abstract the underlying network infrastructure for applications and network services. The paper reports on the main outcomes of a systematic literature review on challenges and effects of SDN. It shows that most papers address the implementation of software defined networking as a challenge, including factors like vendor lock-in and the general risk of changing traditional network architectures. Attention is also given to security issues arising with software defined networks and the permanent high demand from the end-user combined with the fear of changing traditional networks. Issues dealing with specialized know-how were identified as another challenge category. Effects of SDN are discussed by defining unique features of SDN like decoupling hardware from the software and the global view of the whole network architecture. SDN furthermore affects the management of the network, including changes in deployment of policies, the programmability and maintenance of the network. Economic factors, such as cost efficiency and reduction of costs, are also discussed