Abstract: In the fast moving space of technology, everything and everyone is on the Internet accessing the world. The creation of large networks and data centers required for managing and analyzing data will increase in the future, so traditional networking technologies and skills will not be enough to solve the future complications arising in the networking industry. The present networks are more static and rigid where else they need to be more dynamic and flexible. Software Defined Networking (SDN) pledges to solve these issues and change the status quo of the industry. The key ideas behind Software Defined Networking are the separation of control and data plane, centralization of network policies and programmability of the networks. Software Defined Networking also claims to solve the perplexing network management issues with some related technologies. This paper provides an insight into this new paradigm. In the inception, we introduce Software Defined Networking and what exactly led to SDN. The fundamental difference between SDN and traditional networking is discussed next. Then, we discuss the different definitions of SDN proposed by different communities covering every aspect of this new paradigm namely: standardization efforts, history, architectural framework with three planes of networking, northbound and southbound interfaces, SDN controllers, and network applications. We also take a look at the ongoing research work especially from the eye of industry giants like Microsoft, Google, AT&T, etc. specifically in the field of deployment and interoperability among different carrier vendors and cloud service providers. We conclude the paper by explaining how SDN has brought the whole ecosystem under one roof.
Keywords: Software defined networking, OpenFlow, planes of networking, network function virtualization, programmability, orchestration, carrier-grade
