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Networking Advanced

What is SDN (Software-Defined Networking)?

An approach that separates the network control plane from the data plane, enabling centralized, programmable network management.

SDN decouples the decision-making logic (control plane) from the packet forwarding hardware (data plane). A centralized controller programs network devices via APIs, replacing manual device-by-device configuration.

Benefits include network automation, dynamic traffic engineering, easier policy management, and multi-vendor interoperability. OpenFlow is the most common SDN protocol. Cloud providers use SDN extensively for virtual networking (VPC, security groups, load balancers).

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