`Move the Core of the Network First and the Edge Later’

What should be the ideal deployment steps for rolling out SDN in the network?

First of all, the organization needs to get an OpenFlow-compliant switch to act as an SDN controller. When it comes to the actual migration of the network, move the core first and keep the edge for later. When an organization rolls out SDN, many separate boxes in the network, such as bandwidth manager, application accelerator, etc. become redundant, because SDN provides the same functionality in one box itself. There is no such `option' where the least time of deployment can be taken because the deployment does not take much time in any case.

How do you see SDN's position in the market?

If not active resistance, I see a lack of proactive advocacy for SDN from the bigger players in the market. That is understandable because many of these have a sizable share of revenues coming from their long-running businesses in traditional networking. SDN brings openness and enables increased inter-operability, which is what might hurt the incumbent players in the segment. We are new to the market in terms of brand name. We need to go and clear the confusion in the minds of readers after our demerger with D-Link. However, we completely embrace the concept of SDN and are planning to actively conduct events such as road-shows to educate users about what SDN can do for them.