This book discusses the historical networking environment that gave rise to SDN, as well as the latest advances in SDN technology. It provides state of the art knowledge needed for successful deployment of an SDN, including how to explain to the non-technical business decision makers in an organization the potential benefits and risks, in shifting parts of a network to the SDN model; how to make intelligent decisions about when to integrate SDN technologies in a network; how to decide if an organization should be developing its own SDN applications or looking to acquire them from an outside vendor; how to accelerate the ability to develop an SDN application; discusses the evolution of the switch platforms that enable SDN; addresses when to integrate SDN technologies in a network; provides an overview of sample SDN applications relevant to different industries; includes practical examples of how to write SDN applications. --