In the previous report in this series, "The road to SDN begins now," we laid out the business case for software-defined networking (SDN). A network actively, reactively, and proactively defined by software is far more ready than one constructed of static devices, connections, and configurations. So how do you prepare your organization for SDN? A good first step is to examine your present networking environment and network support practices. Also, staying ahead of the software management challenge will be critical for success. And the SDN solution immediately will be compared to the pre-SDN environment, so deployment must deliver positive results from day one.