Like the weather, the Network Management community heated up thanks to some new technology developments. Let's recap the happenings from this week's community news items.

With all of the buzz about software-defined networking (SDN), you'd expect more businesses to be interested in harnessing the technology. However, a recent TechRepublic survey found that 50 percent of IT professionals questioned were unfamiliar with SDN. When asked which technologies they planned to implement over the next 12 months, few mentioned SDN.

SDN uncouples network control functions from packet forwarding, which allows network control to be controlled with software instead of manual switching. As a result, administrators can more easily allot bandwidth from one central interface, and they can change policies across an entire enterprise without making individual device changes. Although some network technology companies call SDN the most important invention since the Internet, many frontline IT professionals know little about implementation.

Just because enterprises haven't warmed to SDN doesn't mean that network technology companies aren't enhancing the networks that we already have. Mobile applications and mobile website optimization are on the minds of many IT administrators. Radware has suggested five immediate steps that can ensure that websites and mobile apps are ready for mobile traffic. These include application delivery controllers (ADC (News - Alert)), denial-of-service (DoS) protection, application certification, application performance and automated Web performance optimization technology.

British Telecom (BT (News - Alert)), to help its customers meet mobile application management challenges, will launch a service called BT Mobile Application Management. The solution will be powered by Apperian, and it will enable BT to further its BYOD solutions campaign by enabling enterprises to deploy apps on both corporate and employee-owned devices.

According to Compuware, 60 percent of companies in Australia experience network problems at least five times per week. Compuware (News - Alert) senior product manager Mike Hicks has suggested enhancing network performance by looking at network performance monitoring (NPM) in the context of network-aware application performance monitoring (APM (News - Alert)). By combining the two solutions, businesses can adjust to commercial changes, speed up new technology implementation and enhance the troubleshooting process.

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