All these reasons for moving to SDN point to one obvious conclusion. In the future, service providers without SDN solutions will be left to compete solely as "vendors of last resort" based upon the uniqueness of their network access and diversity.

The Next Big Thing:
Intent-Based Networking 

While the adoption of SDN is still in the early stages, this hasn’t stopped some in the industry from planning for the next big thing: intent-based networking systems (IBNS). Based on many tenets associated with SDN, intent-based networking builds on the ability for the network to monitor overall network performance, identify issues, and solve problems automatically without manual intervention. New machine learning algorithms position the network administrator in an almost futurist “think-it-and-it-shall-happen” role. The network administrator defines what they want the network to do (intent), and an automated network orchestration software implements those policies.

Intent-based networking holds promise for organizations of all sizes. All IT administrators want greater access control, scalability, security, and multi-vendor device management. IBNS makes those a reality by replacing today’s tedious processes with automated software that instructs the hardware what to do.   These operations are based upon the administrator’s intent and interprets the data based on its context—the who, what, where, when, and how—for security, customization and faster operations. Moreover, IBNS has built-in machine-learning that can analyze, interpret, and apply all the data to provide predictive and actionable insights. This intelligence and efficiency will enable autonomous, self-driving networks for extremely efficient infrastructure planning and management. 

Software-defined-networking and all it brings is the wave of the future that is happening today. Providers and administrators that embrace the technology now will be in a far better position to take advantage of the current benefits and future innovations it will deliver to the organization and end-users.  And like the on-demand, smartphone-enabled taxi service, SDN enables users to control the use of the network and not the other way around.