ONE Summit 2024

Software Defined Networking (SDN) has been widely adopted by the industry due to its compelling value proposition. At the same time, it has also evolved into a large suite of disjoint point solutions. It becomes progressively unclear how the SDN promises can be fulfilled in a systemic and coherent way. Verizon embraced a full SDN approach in the greenfield deployment of Intelligent Edge Network (iEN). In this presentation, we start by sharing our experiences in developing, deploying and scaling iEN to tens of thousands of network elements, the challenges we are facing in the fast-growing 5G networks, and the evolution path we paved for the future. Then, we present Verizon’s approach to build a flexible and fungible network factory that can adapt to business dynamics and accelerate innovations. In particular, we will present the evolution of Verizon SDN controller from a monolithic OpenDayLight-based software package to a fully decoupled microservice-based architecture. We finally conclude with Verizon's SDN ecosystem vision and extend to the operators, vendors and open-source communities an open invitation to participate in this initiative and drive for collective success.