Basis SDN

2025: Market Launch

On May 28, 2025 "Basis" (part of the commercial IT cluster Rostelecom"") announced the start of sales of the "first in Russia fully import-independent" solution for the organization (software-defined networks SDN, Software Defined Networking) - Basis SDN. The product moves network infrastructure management from the hardware level to the level, software simplifying the installation and configuration of various components, and allows administrators to create and segment networks within an organization from a single control panel.

Basis SDN provides a single entry point for managing, configuring and monitoring the organization's virtual network infrastructure, gives the administrator a complete understanding of the state of the networks, and can quickly respond to any changes. The solution supports the creation of complex management scenarios, the design of a network structure for specific tasks, multi-tenancy, work with IPv4 and IPv6 traffic.

𝓲

Фото: "Basis"

The new product became the missing link in the Basis ecosystem: "Our portfolio lacked one key component that our customers needed - a system for managing software-defined networks." The company expects that customers will choose Basis SDN to replace foreign products that have left the Russian market. The key player in this segment both in the world and still in Russia is the VMware NSX platform. With the departure of VMware from Russia, the demand for domestic alternatives has grown significantly, but, at the same time, Russian manufacturers still account for only a meager percentage - there are practically no of them on the market. In addition, as indicated in Basis, the basis of existing solutions is open source.

The direction of software-defined networks is one of the most promising infrastructure software on the Russian market. According to analysts, the average annual growth rate of the SDN-solutions segment in Russia by 2031 will be 13%, and the volume will exceed 32 billion rubles. At the same time, an independent Russian SDN was not presented on the market before, since its development requires expertise in network technologies and a large number of resources, "says David Martirosov, senior vice president for commercial IT products at Rostelecom, CEO of Basis.

David Martirosov, answering TAdviser's questions at the presentation, said that "hundreds of millions of rubles" of the company's own funds have been invested in the development of Basis SDN: "These are significant costs that we have incurred." The exact amount of investment has not been disclosed.

Basis SDN was created in partnership with Angie Software, founded by nginx engineers, the world's most popular web server. The development of a solution such as Basis SDN is a difficult engineering task: "A year of design, a year and a half of development," the head of Basis announced the timing. The combined team consisted of about a hundred specialists: network architects, engineers and developers. At the same time, the rights to the product belong to "Basis," "and" Basis "will carry out its support and further development," said David Martirosov, answering questions from TAdviser.

The developers point out that the first version of Basis SDN implements 80% of the most popular VMware NSX functionality, including full multitenancy, microsegmentation and distributed routing. In the 2nd quarter of 2025, according to the presented roadmap, 85% of the functionality should be implemented, and in the 1st quarter of 2026 - 90%.

𝓲

Фото: TAdviser

Regarding pricing, Basis says their product is two cheaper than VMware NSX. At the same time, it, like the rest of the Basis solutions, can be purchased both by subscription and by license with subsequent technical support. Sales are carried out through partners.

Basis SDN is designed for use in various industries - from telecommunications financial sector to industry transport to government. The solution can work both in the ecosystem of Basis products and in other virtual environments built on an open hypervisor. KVM

The developers position their new product as contributing to the achievement of technological sovereignty: the industry is following the path of standardization of equipment, and Russian manufacturers of switches fully share this trend - most modern domestic switches are essentially standard computers of x86 architecture, it was for these that Basis SDN was created. It will be able to add functionality to domestic switches, turning them into full-fledged solutions for data centers and eliminating software dependence on imported manufacturers.

As for compatibility with the solutions of domestic vendors, Basis SDN supports the most popular Russian OS Astra Linux and Alt. The product can also work with domestic equipment from such manufacturers as Yadro, Aquarius, OpenYard, Biforcom, BST, etc.: "We work on all existing Russian hardware," said the CEO of Basis in a conversation with TAdviser.

According to the company, the first pilots of Basis SDN will begin in June. And among the goals by 2028 - to get over 100 customers of the product and take a market share of about 30% in the segment of Russian SDN solutions.

Of the largest companies leading development in the field of SDN, Sberbank can be cited as an example: back in 2023, TAdviser wrote that at that time the bank was recruiting a team to develop a new solution - SberSDN, which "will be comparable to products such as VMware NSX, Tungsten Fabric, Cisco ACI." However, it was about a product for internal use. But for Sberbank, it is not uncommon to initially develop products for their own needs and subsequently bring them to the foreign market.

Also, for example, in December 2024, Russian software developer for corporate cloud infrastructure Dakom M announced the release of a new version of its SpaceVM 7 virtualization platform, which will receive a domestic SDN controller "offering functionality similar to VMware NSX."

By 2028, there will be a number of Russian solutions on the market, David Martirosov quoted his TAdviser forecast. In addition to Basis, they may receive about 10-15% of the SDN market, if you look optimistically. And the rest will still fall on foreign decisions, the top manager believes.

At the same time, the company plans not to limit itself to the Russian market and offer its product in foreign markets, such as the countries of Africa and South America. There is also a noticeable request for technological sovereignty, seeing current geopolitical events, the company notes.

2024: Product Development Agreement with Angie Software

Basis and Angie entered into a strategic agreement to develop a boxed solution for organizing software-defined networks (SDN). This was announced by "Basis" on October 30, 2024. The product will become part of the Basis ecosystem and will be compatible with VMware NSX in its capabilities . The beta version of the new product will be ready by the end of 2024, and a full launch into commercial operation will take place in 2025.

The SDN solution is developed exclusively for Basis, all rights to it will belong to the company. In total, about a hundred architects, engineers and developers will be involved in the creation of the product. The core of the team will be Angie specialists, who were at the origins of the creation of Nginx, and also held leading engineering positions in the international vendor F5 Networks. Together with the specialists of "Basis" they will create a product architecture, write and test the code, establish native interaction with other solutions of the company's ecosystem.

The product under development will provide customers with the opportunity to centrally manage the corporate network at the software level, its implementation will be most beneficial in complex geodistributed networks. Installation of the product will be possible without significant equipment modernization, which will save IT the budget on hardware. Customers of the SDN solution will be large companies with a wide range IT infrastructure financial of organizations, telecommunication companies, Marketplaces etc. In addition to the product, a single entry point will be created for full technical support and tools for seamless implementation, including migration business processes from VMWare NSX.

The need for a full-fledged domestic SDN solution to replace foreign products not available on the Russian market, such as VMWare NSX, is long overdue. And the point is not only in import substitution, the direction of software-defined networks in itself is one of the most promising in the world. In Russia, it is especially important: the total average annual growth rate of the SDN solutions segment is 14%, and by 2027 they will occupy a third of the infrastructure services market and reach about 30 billion rubles. Therefore, in order to achieve the main goal of Basis - to obtain the status of a national champion - we need to invest significant resources in the development of a full-fledged domestic SDN. This requires a team of professionals with expertise in the subject area, and here we are lucky to join our efforts with Angie specialists who have experience in creating world solutions. Such an eminent team had many offers to participate in promising projects, including international ones, but they chose "Basis" and the ambitious task that we face. I am sure that together we will create a product that can compete with global developments not only on the Russian market, but also at the global level, "said David Martirosov, CEO of Basis.

The development of a full-fledged SDN solution is a complex process, the implementation of which can only be carried out by a professional team of engineers, network architects and developers. In Angie, we have assembled just such a team. Cooperation with Basis will provide Angie with the necessary resources and enrich expertise in the field of virtualization, we have already built an exchange of experience at the level of solution architecture. Our first priority will be the high-quality and stable implementation of the key SDN capabilities with a priority on the implementation of modern information security tools, "commented Angie CEO Zaur Abasmirzoev.