Open Network Featured Article

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” That old quote from Isaac Newton may seem like false modesty—Newton wasn't exactly a slouch in the field—but he had a point about how science builds from the successes of the previous generation. That's a quote that a lot of developers will be turning to now that a giant in the field, AT&T (News - Alert), has turned its “network playbook” into an open source property.

More specifically, AT&T is making open source the entire software platform on which its software-defined network (SDN) operations run, which includes its complete Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy (ECOMP) system. It's particularly designed for a world in which bandwidth demands are growing especially fast; where before, demand for data traffic was fairly flat for a text-based Internet with some voice features, now the demand has exploded, and video is the new top dog. Reports note that AT&T's data traffic has grown over 150,000 percent between just 2007 and 2015, and that's not likely to slow up any time soon.

That's where the ECOMP system comes in; ECOMP has already been proven a winner in adding features and lowering operational expenses, offering more control in the network and improving the overall user experience by making the user-facing experiences run more smoothly. It's similar to how technology in general improves, with the smartphone able to serve as a camera, MP3 player, flashlight and calculator all in one unit.

AT&T's chief strategy officer and group president for technology and operations John Donovan (News - Alert) commented “In March, we opened the hood of our network, showed you the engine and the industry responded asking to join us. Over the last few years, AT&T invented what we believe to be the most sophisticated, comprehensive and scalable software-centric network in the world. Today, we're letting anyone use and build upon our millions of lines of software code by committing to releasing it into the open source community.”

With AT&T releasing its ECOMP system into open source, it's managed to accomplish one key point: it's likely going to bring a lot of near-term—and potentially longer-term—development under its own banner. A major open source release like this is sure to draw developers, and put them to work under AT&T's precepts. That means AT&T will have a handle on what's being developed, and be able to drive its own future development accordingly. It's essentially taking what could have been a chunk of sales and turning it into some major potential future growth.

It's a bit risky as strategies go, but it could pay off in a big way. AT&T's move into open source provides the giant's shoulder on which future development will emerge, and may make AT&T an even bigger part of the landscape.