SDN: 7 Educational Opportunities

Networking professionals hear all the time that they need to learn new skills to keep up with a rapidly changing industry. On-the-job training would be a practical option, but if your company hasn't plunged into software-defined networking – and plenty haven't -- how do you expand your knowledge when you're mired in CLI?

As it turns out, the options for learning new approaches to networking are growing as SDN adoption gradually expands beyond hyper-scale Internet companies and service providers. This spring, the Linux Foundation rolled out a software-defined networking training course to address what the foundation described as a skills gap for networking pros. In launching the SDN training, the foundation said many network engineers lack experience with software virtualization.

Also this spring, Juniper Networks expanded its OpenLab program, providing its customers and partners with more locations to develop and test out SDN and NFV. Meanwhile, Cisco has revised its venerable CCIE program to include network programmability and other emerging technologies.

Opportunities to learn about SDN are expanding as the SDN market continues to grow. According to IHS, the global market of SDN Ethernet switches, controllers and SD-WAN products used in the data center and enterprise was up 82% in 2015 compared to the previous year. IHS estimates the market will reach $15.6 billion by 2020.

As students prepare to head back to classes, why not consider this a good time to focus on education that can help boost your IT networking career? Continue on to checkout some educational opportunities.

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