Investors buy into software-defined networks; will customers follow?

As Superstorm Sandy bore down on the US East coast last year, companies with data centres in its path needed another location fast. But moving computer servers is tricky, and usually planned over days or weeks.

Enter a new technology: software-defined networking, or SDN. Such urgent data moves could now be done within a few hours.

Investors, including some of the world’s biggest technology companies, are buying into the start-ups behind SDN, a technology that allows users to substitute some of the most complex hardware functions in server switches with software.

via Business feed http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/1275166/investors-buy-software-defined-networks-will-customers-follow