Cloud Computing: Apigee launches product as telcos prep software defined networks

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Stacey Higginbotham.

Many interested in deploying software defined networks are eager for the agility and programmability they can provide. But the fear of breaking their network means IT is leery of deploying SDNs. Apigee has updated its API management products to work on SDNs to alleviate those fears.

Apigee, a company that helps customers manage application programming interfaces that developers use to build services, is introducing a product specifically for software-defined networks that will help its telco customers manage their APIs based on the state of the network and policies already in place for specific users. Apigee, which counts customers such as Walgreens, Telefonica and AT&T, is adding software that can be deployed on controllers such as those offered by Nicira, BigSwitch, IBM and others as well as a platform that will help apply analytics to the network to determine when to take specific actions based on polices or the network’s health…

Software defined networks, where the intelligence needed to operate and manage the flow of traffic is no longer housed in expensive gear but in commodity servers running software, are of growing interest to both telcos and data center operators. The benefit of such networks is that the gear is less pricey, but also that such networks are programmable and agile. On the telco side, the hope is that SDNs can help reduce the complexity of moving data across networks and help carriers and ISPs lower their costs…

Read more from the source @ http://gigaom.com/cloud/apigee-launches-product-as-telcos-prep-software-defined-networks/