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In this software age, is there any role left for hardware? In our three-part guide, our experts' response is a resounding, "yes." It may feel like this is the era of software-defined everything and that there's no place left for hardware, but that's an illusion. It only seems like network hardware is out because software is oh-so in. The time has come to correct that assumption. Just because most things appear to be getting software-defined, that doesn't mean hardware should be placed on the metaphorical back burner.

In the big hardware vs. software debate, hardware definitely has its place, and some of its roles are expanding rather than shrinking. Even in this virtualization revolution, there's an ongoing hardware evolution. This technical guide looks at why and where hardware is still an essential networking choice in terms of scale, reliability and performance.