Traditional networks offer limited capabilities to observe current conditions and control forwarding paths. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a fresh approach that provides direct control over network-wide behavior. By implementing standard functionality using both approaches — e.g., shortest-path forwarding — the differences between traditional networks and SDN become clear.

In this course, you will delve into the fundamental concepts of SDN, opening the doors to a world of programmable networking. Traditional networks have been constrained by fixed protocols, making them rigid and challenging to adapt. SDN changes this paradigm by allowing you to program both the control plane and the data plane. You’ll begin by exploring the historical context of network design as well as the ideas that paved the way for SDN, including systems like Ethane, which introduced programmable network-wide security policies.

Moving forward, you will explore essential SDN components like the P4 programming language and the network information base (NIB), enabling you to implement and manage network-wide algorithms and protocols effectively. Through this course, you’ll gain valuable foundational knowledge and skills to build on throughout your career, equipping yourself with the terminology and knowledge needed to navigate the world of SDN.

To deliver on service-level agreements, networking professionals know they must continuously manage and optimize their networks. An SDN-enabled network can be managed through software, making network optimization more efficient, flexible, and granular.

In this course, you will use SDN to optimize the flow of data through a network. You’ll identify how network paths affect performance and use SDN to implement optimal traffic engineering. Finally, you’ll examine operational considerations for SDN-based traffic engineering. The knowledge and skills you gain will help you leverage SDN to ensure network traffic flows as efficiently as possible from one network node to another.

To make critical decisions for their teams and clients, networking professionals need real-time data to understand how their network is functioning. Using SDN, you can capture real-time data and integrate it into a network’s control plane to enable network automation and efficient scaling.

In this course, you will gain the skills you need to understand a network’s status. You’ll use SDN to get visibility into a network and detect changes in network conditions. You’ll also implement network telemetry with SDN. Finally, you’ll explore how to integrate monitoring data into the control loop. With these skills, you’ll understand how to assess the status of a network and apply these teachings to your projects.

Scaling an SDN-enabled network often requires the integration of new physical boxes such as load balancers, content caches, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems into the network. In this course, you will explore how to customize routing to integrate network functions.

With SDN, you can program your network to offload some network functionality to these boxes, giving you the ability to orchestrate the flow of packets through a pipeline of middle boxes. You will discover how to scale up network functions by offloading to hardware and scale out applications using SDN and network functions.

Network monitoring is historically focused since it enables networking professionals to view and analyze what has happened in a network. Conversely, network verification is future focused since it enables network professionals to predict what could happen in a network based on a specification.

In this course, you will specify SDNs in terms of high-level intents. You’ll then practice verifying SDNs using static and dynamic techniques. By the end of this course, you’ll have the skills you need to better understand how networks are verified, adding to your toolkit for informed application of software-defined networking.

eCornell Online Workshops are live, interactive 3-hour learning experiences led by Cornell faculty experts. These premium short-format sessions focus on AI topics and are designed for busy professionals who want to gain immediately applicable skills and strategic perspectives. Workshops include faculty presentations, breakout discussions, guided hands-on practice, and downloadable resources.

The AI Workshops All-Access Pass provides you with unlimited participation for 6 months from your date of purchase. Whether you choose to attend one workshop per month, or several per week, the All-Access Pass will allow you to customize your AI journey and stay on top of the latest AI trends.

Workshops cover a range of cutting-edge AI topics applicable across industries, hosted by Cornell faculty at the forefront of their fields. Whether you are just getting started with AI, seeking to build your AI skillset, or exploring advanced applications of AI, Workshops will provide you with an action-oriented learning experience for immediate application in your career. Sample Workshops include:

  • Work Smarter with AI Agents: Individual and Team Effectiveness
  • Leading AI Transformation: Bigger Than You Imagine, Harder Than You Expect
  • Using AI at Work: Practical Choices and Better Results
  • Search & Discoverability in the Era of AI
  • Don’t Just Prompt AI – Govern it
  • AI-Powered Product Manager
  • Leverage AI and Human Connection to Lead through Uncertainty

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How It Works

Frequently Asked Questions

Modern networks are expected to be fast, resilient, and adaptable, even as they become more complex and more software-driven. The Cornell Software-Defined Networking Certificate helps you respond to that reality by teaching you how software-defined networking (SDN) separates the control plane from the data plane so you can design, tune, and manage network behavior with more flexibility.

In this certificate program, authored by faculty from the Cornell Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, you will build practical SDN capability from the ground up. You’ll learn foundational SDN concepts, build your first SDN in a hands-on programming environment, and apply SDN techniques to improve performance through smarter path selection and traffic engineering. You’ll also explore how SDN can support monitoring and how network functions and middleboxes can be integrated to scale a network up and out.

Because the work is meant to be applied, you will practice implementing and evaluating SDN approaches that can improve packet throughput, uptime, and overall efficiency, and you’ll learn methods for verifying network properties using both static and dynamic techniques.

If you want hands-on SDN implementation skills, practical methods for optimizing traffic and monitoring network conditions, and the ability to customize and verify network behavior with modern SDN techniques, you should choose Cornell's Software-Defined Networking Certificate.

Many online networking courses stop at concepts or leave you on your own to connect theory to the realities of operating and improving a network. Cornell’s Software-Defined Networking Certificate is built to keep the learning applied and guided while you develop real, job-relevant SDN skills.

You learn in an environment designed for working professionals, with an expert facilitator who provides feedback on your work. The flexible, asynchronous coursework allows you to maintain momentum while getting human support and practical perspective.

Just as importantly, the SDN focus is not generic. You will work on capabilities that map directly to SDN outcomes, including implementing traffic engineering to optimize flows, using monitoring and data collection to detect changing network conditions, integrating network functions and middleboxes for scaling, and applying verification techniques to validate network properties.

Enrolling in Cornell’s Software-Defined Networking Certificate also provides you with a 6-month All-Access Pass to eCornell's live online AI Workshops, interactive sessions led by world-class Cornell faculty that combine Ivy League insight with practical applications for busy professionals. Each 3-hour Workshop features structured instruction, guided practice, and real tools to build competitive AI capabilities, plus the opportunity to connect with a global cohort of growth-oriented peers. While AI Workshops are not required, they enhance certificate programs through:

  • Integrating AI perspectives across most curricula
  • Responding to emerging AI developments and trends
  • Offering direct engagement with Cornell faculty at the forefront of AI research

The Cornell Software-Defined Networking Certificate is designed for professionals who work with networks and want to build practical SDN capability they can apply to real environments.

The Software-Defined Networking Certificate is a strong fit if you are:

  • A network administrator or network architect looking to modernize network control and automation approaches
  • A network engineer, operator, or enterprise network system installer responsible for performance, uptime, and efficient routing
  • A system administrator, integrator, or solutions designer who needs to customize routing and integrate network functions
  • A DevOps professional or NFV technologist who wants to understand how SDN techniques can support scalable, programmable infrastructure

To be ready for the work in Cornell’s Software-Defined Networking Certificate, you should bring basic Python programming knowledge and be comfortable with core networking context such as packet switching and basic network and transport layers. Prior exposure to socket programming or configuring routers and switches is also helpful.

Project work in Cornell’s Software-Defined Networking Certificate is designed to help you move from understanding SDN concepts to implementing and validating them in a hands-on programming environment. You will practice building, optimizing, monitoring, and verifying SDN behavior through applied exercises and project-style deliverables such as:

  • Building an initial SDN implementation that reflects the separation of the control plane from the data plane
  • Analyzing how different network paths affect performance, then adjusting SDN control logic to improve outcomes
  • Implementing traffic engineering approaches to optimize how data flows through the network
  • Designing monitoring and data collection techniques to detect changes in network conditions
  • Customizing routing to integrate network functions and leverage middleboxes to support scaling up and out
  • Applying SDN verification methods, including static and dynamic techniques, to check network properties

Across Cornell’s Software-Defined Networking Certificate, you will create artifacts and implementation experience you can translate into clearer network design decisions and more confident SDN execution on the job.

The Cornell Software-Defined Networking Certificate equips you with practical, implementable SDN skills you can use to improve network performance, observability, and scalability.

After completing the Software-Defined Networking Certificate, you will be prepared to:

  • Differentiate between traditional distributed networks and centralized SDN approaches to network architecture
  • Identify how network paths affect performance
  • Implement optimal traffic engineering with SDN
  • Detect changes in network conditions and implement data-monitoring and collection techniques
  • Customize routing to integrate network functions
  • Verify SDNs using static and dynamic techniques

Cornell’s Software-Defined Networking Certificate is designed to build capabilities that can strengthen your professional credibility on SDN-focused work by helping you implement traffic engineering, monitoring and data collection, network function integration (including middleboxes), and SDN verification techniques.

What truly sets eCornell apart is how our programs unlock genuine career transformation. Learners earn promotions to senior positions, enjoy meaningful salary growth, build valuable professional networks, and navigate successful career transitions.

Cornell's Software-Defined Networking Certificate is delivered through our Mentored Learning format and consists of 5 courses requiring approximately 15 to 17 hours of study for each, or 80 hours of coursework in total. You have up to 6 months to complete all necessary components, though you may finish in fewer than 6 months depending on your schedule. The program allows you to follow an individualized structured learning agenda with a flexible approach that includes interaction and project feedback with your expert facilitator. You'll also complete graded projects that let you apply learning concepts to on-the-job situations.

Throughout the Software-Defined Networking Certificate program, your expert facilitator provides personalized feedback on all projects and offers opportunities for 1:1 mentoring sessions as you progress. This guided approach allows you to ask questions and receive support as you work through practical applications and real-world scenarios.

To get the most from Cornell’s Software-Defined Networking Certificate, you should be ready to program and ready to think about networks at the packet and protocol levels.

Cornell’s Software-Defined Networking Certificate program expects basic Python programming knowledge (often described as CS1 level). You should also be comfortable working with data structures, making API calls, and using libraries. From a networking perspective, you should understand how networked applications work, including packet switching and the basics of the network and transport layers. Experience with socket programming using operating system APIs or configuring routers and switches is beneficial but not required.

Performance optimization is a central theme of Cornell’sl Software-Defined Networking Certificate. You will learn how network paths affect performance and how SDN can be used to implement optimal traffic engineering so you can improve how data flows through the network.

You will also develop the ability to detect changes in network conditions and apply monitoring and data-collection techniques, which supports more informed, responsive control decisions. Taken together, these skills help you target practical outcomes such as improved packet throughput, uptime, and overall network efficiency.

Scaling and visibility challenges are exactly where SDN can create leverage, and the Cornell Software-Defined Networking Certificate is designed to build that skill set. You will explore how SDN can be used to monitor a network as well as how monitoring and data collection can help you detect and respond to changing network conditions.

You will also learn how to customize routing to integrate network functions, including the use of middleboxes to scale a network up and out. By the end of Cornell’s Software-Defined Networking Certificate program, you’ll be better equipped to design SDN-driven approaches that improve efficiency while keeping key network properties verifiable.