Introduction to Software Defined Networking

Overall rating: 4.60 Instructor: 4.79 Materials: 4.63 more …

What is SDN? What is software-hardware disaggregation and whitebox switching and why are they relevant? Will SDN solve all networking problems? Is centralized control plane the answer to all problems we have today ... or is it just an useless overhyped concept? This webinar will explain the basics of Software Defined Networking and other related emerging technologies and concepts, and help you answer all the above questions.

If you’re CIO, network architect or designer working in service provider or large enterprise environments, you'll find this one and a half hour webinar a must-have overview of Software Defined Networks and related technologies.

Live Sessions

The next live session of this webinar will take place in Spring 2024.

This short update of the Introduction to SDN webinar will introduce intent-based networking and further technologies used to implement software-defined networking, including segment routing, overlay virtual networks and container-based networking.

Don't have a subscription yet? Hurry up, so you can be there in person and ask interesting questions.

Availability

This webinar is part of Software Defined Networking (SDN) roadmap and accessible with standard subscription

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About the Author

Ivan PepelnjakIvan Pepelnjak (CCIE#1354 Emeritus) has been analyzing OpenFlow technology and SDN ideas (and being pretty vocal about their shortcomings) since March 2011, resulting in a number of high-impact events, on-site SDN workshops for large enterprises and service providers, and vendor-sponsored webinars.

Ivan is the author of several SDN-related books, highly praised webinars, and dozens of OpenFlow and SDN-related technical articles published on his blog.

More about Ivan Pepelnjak

Happy Campers

About the webinar

Thanks you so much for providing us with such sessions and i hope if we can meet someday

Mohamed Osama Saad Abosree
Your webinars are extremely useful for me. I'm interested in SDN, NFV and Future Network, therefore it's very helpful. I hope i can watch all of your webinar about aforementioned topics.
Anyway, Thank you so much for wonderful webinars
NGUYEN VAN GIANG
There are probably some pro's and con's but I would prefer having all the questions at the end. The reason I say that is beacuse sometime the rest of the audience (including me) does not understand the question or worse is not interested by a question => there is some waste of time.
Piret Benoit
I have significant experience in these areas, so I found the webinar to basic for my needs.
(Anonymous)
Curiously, your discussion of what networking does well (e.g. dest based fwding) and what it has great trouble with (e.g. traffic eng) may prove the most useful. It is usually pretty hard to know that sort of thing in advance.
jim warner
Excelent webminar!!!
Roberto
Great research and information as always!
Yogesh Angrish
It was great to see the concepts in context the industry, point of view of ISPs etc.
Kurt Baumann
Ivan always provides interesting thoughts on current and future technologies. I have been a fan of Ivan from the first time I read his MPLS books many years ago.
Gregory Wendel
although there is sponsorship involved from NEC, there is still a critical look to all vendors regarding SDN and no specific recommendations are pointing to NEC.
Guido Maenen
Its good one,with the basics.
Manjunatha GH
surely
Boris Khasanov
A good, and nicely cynical, introduction into the realities of SDN.
Kerry Thompson
Keep up the great work Ivan :)
Matt Rudkowski
I think you did an excellent job of choosing the material for this webinar.
Salman Naqvi
Upto the mark.Top Notch Ivan.
Chinar Trivedi
It was very down to earth and crisp content - I could indeed related to most of it.
Rik Herlaar
seesion : what is SDN
Well I would have liked to be told explicitely the reasons why companies use SDN.
From the webinar implicitely I would say ease of deployment (I assume it would be to have an easiness of deployment close to that of VM in public clouds fro customers) or to pay less to network device vendors and get functions and services closer to the need.
I would have appreciated to have it explicitely said because I can be mistaken or forget things.

On top of that, the indication I have listed seem to target more rather big companies in which the network is modified very often and thus for which ease of deployment is a critical feature.

being new to this I may have missed things of course.

As a whole very interesting session, with very interesting information, it's main drawback : it has a quality that is addictive to follow other sessions from ipspace but may be it is a compliment ? ;-)
Muchery Thibault
Very clear, in-depth coverage.
Saumya Hegde
Excellent webinar. I love the vendor neutral insight and the pragmatic views on the new technologies.
Omar Alhassane
I really enjoyed the Q&A and the way that you answered questions throughout the presentation.
Matt Richards
An excellent high level overview of SDN for people like me -- not a network engineer but familliar / work with network technologies
Russ Harvey
Excellent perspectives on SDN. Very refreshing to hear a vendor-neutral presentation on what SDN is and what it is not. I would highly recommend this session to anyone interested in SDN.
Patrick Watson
Very interesting and useful to learn the basic elements of SDN
Tiziano
This webinar cut through the bs of the current SDN hype. It was straight forward in its efforts to explain SDN. I would recommend this webinar to any individual wanting a current explanation of what SDN is not, and therefore what it has the capability of being.
Bryan Miller
Too much time is spent describing what SDN is not. I find it distracting.
Etienne-Victor Depasquale
A great overview of the technology
Rod Oliver
I have been following the blog and posts in IP Space for a few year now and I must thank Ivan for providing such a wonderful platform. I have shared his blogs with my colleagues and friends and will continue doing it.
Saravanan R Rajasekaran
The perspectives on SDN were well thought out and very informative. It was also nice to hear a vendor-neutral take on what SDN is (and what it isn't).
Patrick Watson
Very clear and concise introduction to SDN. I really appreciated the critical vision of sdn
Tiziano Tofoni
It rules SDN.
Claes Ferngren
You certainly heard about SDN and the buzz around it. Want to know what it means and what it does not mean?
Mohammad Salehe
Good explanation of what SDN is not :) Now I need to read the rest of the videos to know what it really is, appart of the abstraction for end-users.
Benoit GONCALVES
Ivan is clearly an engineer's engineer. He has a superb ability to communicate subject matter concisely and, as a bonus, with a dry wit that makes his productions a delight to watch. I've already found opportunities to quote him; for instance re: the circumstance we all face once or twice a month "... because someone asked them to change the network or security setup on Friday afternoon after the deployment of a new application has been delayed for months." Anyone miss the BOFH days?

If you need a clear introduction to a networking subject, this is the place to find it. If you want in-depth examination of a subject, this is the place to find it. If you need some comic relief from someone who has been in your networking shoes... you get the picture.
David Joyce
It was very informative.
William Murray
What made me look into this was the fact that this webinar was free, and it's certainly a great start material for anyone who wants to know about SDN.
Miguel Goncalves
as always an excellent webinar
Gabriel Sulbaran
Good introduction to SDN concepts, getting past implementation specifics and marketing and focusing on the main point: abstractions to help development teams get secure network connectivity, on demand, in a way they can understand.
Stuart Charlton

About the instructor

Spend less time on each slide; let attendees read material vs. going over every point on slide
(Anonymous)
One of the most knowledgeable network engineers/architects in the world!
Yogesh Angrish
I thought handled questions well (with a mid-course correction to move more to the end) on answering questions during the presentation vs at the end.
Doug Varney
Please have similar FREE webinars in future. :P
Chinar Trivedi
Very Good
Muchery Thibault
Very knowledgeable about anything to do with networking.
Crystal clear presentation style.
Saumya Hegde
I thought the tone and phrasing was very constructive and objective. I would not hesitate to ask a question during a presentation of his.
Matt Richards
I greatly enjoyed Ivan's presentation of SDN. It was very methodical and well organized.
Patrick Watson
Ivan number one !!!
Tiziano
Ivan clearly knew the material he was explaining to the attendees. Explanations were concise and to the point.
Bryan Miller

About the materials

Material was too basic for my needs.
Would have liked to see more detailed information on real world deployments.
(Anonymous)
Some "actions" don't happen down at the fwding plane but instead are done in software -- affecting performance. It would be nice to have some examples of this.
jim warner
Now I have resources and information to share with my co-workers in order to evalute the different SDN solutions in the market.
Roberto
Very thorough.
Yogesh Angrish
I thought that the slides with "Do well/don't do well/don't do at all" or "Easy/Harder/Impossible" was very valuable in conjunction with the use cases (always like to see more use case examples).
Doug Varney
HI Ivan, these seminars are exceptional, blah blah. I know you have heard this enough. It would be great if you have a paid podcast channel that I could subscribe to for SDN based. This way it will automatically be downloaded and offline viewable. Thank you so much for all the hardwork.
Srinivas Ram
nice to see that the content is split around different modules. Also good that the slides can be downloaded as reference.
Guido Maenen
Materials are good enough, good collection.
Manjunatha GH
A few more technical details relating to real-life scenarios would help. Network engineers like to see how things work rather than hear speculation as to how they should work.
Kerry Thompson
While the material was not relevant to my current job it was explained thouroughly and was easy to follow along and digest.
Bryan Miller
Very informative. I would highly recommend to anyone who is trying to find out exactly what SDN is and what it can do.
Patrick Watson
I am impressed - in a good way - by your communication skills. Although SDN is not a subject I can apply directly in my work (at least for now), it certainly helped me to understand core concepts.
Miguel Goncalves
Getting a bit dated and could use an intro to container networking technologies (which aren’t actually all that different).
Stuart Charlton