Continuously delivering your network

Softwarization and cloudification of networks through software defined networking and network functions virtualisation promise a new degree of flexibility and agility. By moving logic from device firmware into software applications and applying software development mechanisms, innovation can be introduced with less effort. Concrete ways how to operate and orchestrate such systems are not yet defined. The process of making changes to a controller software or a virtualized network function in a production network without the risk of network disruption is not covered by literature. Complexity of systems brings the risk of unexpected side-effects and has so long been a show-stopper for administrators applying changes to networking devices. This paper suggests the adaption of the successful concept of continuous delivery into the software defined networking world. Test-driven development and automatic acceptance tests demonstrate that the software engineering community already found ways to ensure that changes do not break. Applied to network engineering, the adaption of continuous delivery can be seen as an enabler for risk-free and frequent changes in production infrastructure through push button deployments.