An industrial software defined network having an architecture for centralized management of the industrial software defined network, the industrial software defined network comprising: an infrastructure plane including physical and virtual devices connected to the industrial software defined network; a control plane comprising a plurality of controllers to control and manage the physical and virtual devices in the infrastructure plane to the south, the plurality of controllers including a software defined network, SDN, controller, a virtualization management controller and a cybersecurity controller, wherein the virtualization management controller is adapted to use an Application Programming Interface, API, of the SDN controller to issue commands to the SDN controller for creating, configuring and populating forwarding tables of switches of a virtual multilayer switch database; an application plane comprising one or more industrial applications; and a platform plane comprising a set of software services and application programming interfaces, APIs, wherein the set of software services includes an industrial software defined networking application, ISDNA, that provides communication interfaces to the application plane to the north and to the control plane to the south, the communication interfaces adapted to provide, to an industrial application in the application plane programmatic access to one or more of the plurality of the controllers in the control plane for centralized management of the industrial software defined network. management of the industrial software defined network, the industrial software defined network comprising: an infrastructure plane including physical and virtual devices connected to the industrial software defined network; a control plane comprising a plurality of controllers to control and manage the physical and virtual devices in the infrastructure plane to the south, the plurality of controllers including a software defined network, SDN, controller, a virtualization management controller and a cybersecurity controller, wherein the virtualization management controller is adapted to use an Application Programming Interface, API, of the SDN controller to issue commands to the SDN controller for creating, configuring and populating forwarding tables of switches of a virtual multilayer switch database; an application plane comprising one or more industrial applications; and a platform plane comprising a set of software services and application programming interfaces, APIs, wherein the set of software services includes an industrial software defined networking application, ISDNA, that provides communication interfaces to the application plane to the north and to the control plane to the south, the communication interfaces adapted to provide, to an industrial application in the application plane programmatic access to one or more of the plurality of the controllers in the control plane for centralized management of the industrial software defined network. an infrastructure plane including physical and virtual devices connected to the industrial software defined network; a control plane comprising a plurality of controllers to control and manage the physical and virtual devices in the infrastructure plane to the south, the plurality of controllers including a software defined network, SDN, controller, a virtualization management controller and a cybersecurity controller, wherein the virtualization management controller is adapted to use an Application Programming Interface, API, of the SDN controller to issue commands to the SDN controller for creating, configuring and populating forwarding tables of switches of a virtual multilayer switch database; an application plane comprising one or more industrial applications; and a platform plane comprising a set of software services and application programming interfaces, APIs, wherein the set of software services includes an industrial software defined networking application, ISDNA, that provides communication interfaces to the application plane to the north and to the control plane to the south, the communication interfaces adapted to provide, to an industrial application in the application plane programmatic access to one or more of the plurality of the controllers in the control plane for centralized management of the industrial software defined network.