Vinay Nagpal, Open IX & Derek Garnier, Layer 42 Networks, at Peer 2.0 with John Furrier @theCUBE #Peer2 There are many factors contributing to the adoption behavior surrounding software-defined networking, from mobile devices in the workplace to virtualization trends. But cost remains the primary consideration for most organizations, and automation can keep IT departments on budget, according to Paul Unbehagen, co-author of the Shortest Path Bridging protocol for optimizing data center traffic and the chief architect at Avaya Networking Inc., an emerging provider of programmable networking solutions. This pursuit of cost savings is driving a long overdue transformation in the corporate network that is seeing the need for manual intervention rapidly go down as software takes over tasks previously carried out by humans. A key figures behind the transition, Unbehagen made his debut appearance on theCUBE at the Peer 2.0 engineering summit last week to share the insider take on the paradigm shift taking place today with hosts John Furrier and Jeff Frick. The accelerating migration from legacy topologies to robust new architectures that combine commodity equipment with free software is the result of several disruptive trends converging in a “perfect storm” scenario, according to Unbehagen, raising the need for organizations to rethink how they build and run their networks. “For the last 20 years, we’ve been using the same protocols to operate a network that’s been very static when everything connected to this is dynamic, moving around,” he explained. “In the original networking models, you didn’t like things moving around, you wanted things to stay where they were, and now you have to deal with things that are mobile.”