What Kind of SDN for the Industrial IoT?

Frankly I am very surprised that software defined networking (SDN) seems to be so quickly making inroads into the Industrial IoT (IIoT) and industrial automation in general. The speed with which this is happening gives me feelings of dizziness.

Analysts are supposed to be know-it-alls (some analysts do act like this, especially ones from a certain firm unnecessary to name). There is an inside joke that when you are an analyst and you truly have no idea what to answer, you should begin with the words “We believe...”. Regarding SDN, I’m not even sure what I believe, except for this: everybody in the industrial automation business should have their eyes on it. The reason why is that just as networks are ubiquitous, SDN may soon be everywhere as well.

Here are some examples from 4 industries that are outside ARC’s coverage:

• Telecom – In this huge industry with a shorter asset life cycle than industrial automation. In telecom today, network functions virtualization (NFV) is the emerging practice of replacing dedicated appliances in cellular tower base stations with virtualized appliances that run on ruggedized high-availability servers. While this is system (not network) virtualization, equipment suppliers are adding network virtualization to their NFV server products.


• Military/Defense – The military has very distinct missions and requirements compared to industrial, but network security and resilience are critical, and networks are everywhere in the military and perform mission-critical functions. SDN is a natural fit for many such requirements.


• Vehicles – Vehicle networks must undergo a total revolution as vehicles develop greater levels of autonomy. A growing number of these functions will impact safety, so you can bet that the requirements imposed on vehicle networks will grow to match what we find today in industrial automation and safety.


• Enterprise Networks – SDN technologies are the obvious successor to the outdated enterprise model of fixed IT assets, an open and trusted intranet, and a firewalled internet. All these model assumptions have become invalid, and so adoption of a new enterprise network model is certain, though the timing sadly is not.

And here are examples from ARC’s research domain:

• Industrial Automation and Infrastructure – SDN offers the possibility of much higher security, easier mobility, simplified collaboration across firms, and relatively simple support for legacy assets and systems. These industrial requirements have conflicted with many emerging technologies, and resulted in non-adoption. SDN’s potential to deliver all of these features makes the prospect of industrial SDN very attractive. I’ve written a deeper dive about this here for ARC clients.


• Industrial IoT – IIoT network requirements, while similar to those of industrial automation, stretch them to another level.

So here is my question: If SDN does go everywhere, what forms will it take in each domain? Which areas will remain distinctive and which areas will adopt solutions from others? I honestly don’t yet know the answers to these questions, but I’d love to.