🎁 New User? Get 20% off your first purchase with code NEWUSER20 · ⚡ Instant download · 🔒 Secure checkout Register Now →
Menu

Categories

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).

Related Terms

CIDR Notation
A compact method for specifying IP addresses and their associated routing prefix using a slash followed by the prefix length.
HTTP/HTTPS
The protocol used for transferring web pages and data between browsers and servers, with HTTPS adding encryption.
Network Monitoring
The practice of continuously observing network infrastructure to detect failures, performance degradation, and security threats.
Token Bucket Algorithm
A rate limiting algorithm that allows burst traffic by accumulating tokens at a fixed rate and consuming them per request.
MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit)
The maximum size of a data packet that can be transmitted over a network without fragmentation.
DHCP
A protocol that automatically assigns IP addresses and network configuration to devices on a network.
 View All Networking Terms →