Software-defined networking (SDN) is all about decoupling hardware from software. Paul Ruinaard, regional sales manager for Sub-Saharan Africa at Nutanix, describes SDN as changing the way we see the datacentre and network of the future. Software and functionality that used to be tightly coupled to specific hardware has now become uncoupled and can run on any hardware. “SDN takes a router, switch, firewall or load balancer and splits it up using software, rather than having separate hardware for each component,” he says.

Businesses are no longer restricted by hardware lock-in, which means they can release countless new features in the same time it would take to develop a new application or wait for new hardware capable of running the app, adds Ruinaard.