Open Network Featured Article

Networking equipment and solutions are one of the few major areas of technology where diversity is somewhat lacking. When it comes to applications and services, mobile devices and even software, consumers and businesses alike have a wide variety of choices from hardware on up. But the networking world is still very much bound by legacy and tradition in the form of proprietary hardware and software.

Changes in the rest of the technology landscape are steadily forcing a change in the networking world, particularly when it comes to communications networks. The cloud, a services-driven economy and the Internet of Things (IoT) have impacted how people communicate and access information, and in return, networks are undergoing a transformation to keep up with massive traffic loads and on-demand applications and services.

The change is most noticeable when it comes to the areas of software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV). Open standards, interoperability and choice are the key elements of the SDN movement, all of which are driving innovation and a new breed of white label and white box hardware and software offerings.

The market for SDN switches and controllers is expected to reach $1.4 billion this year and surpass $12 billion by 2019, according to IHS (News - Alert). This exploding market is paving the way for white box deployments in the data center and enterprise, basic pieces of hardware that may be used to install a variety of software solutions. This practice increases choice, lowers costs and allows network and data center operators to mix and match interoperable solutions that work best for their specific network environments and requirements.

Ease of choice is another important variable in the era of open networking. SDN and NFV have made it easy to choose and deploy network components quickly and cost effectively and glean optimum value from them. Network operators are now working to optimize their equipment to offer competitive speeds and rates while making the most of the solutions they have in place. A software-defined approach helps speed along this process and offers flexibility and choice – key factors for competitive differentiation in today’s networking landscape.