SDN: a story that will run and run

Triumph because the sudden swirl of support for Software Defined Networking apparent over the past six months or so, and in a way culminating in the establishment of OpenDaylight Project, represents a victory of sorts for the OSF, OpenFlow and the gaggle of start-ups and large Online Service Providers (OSPs) that have hitherto been driving the SDN project. Now SDN is certified as "the settled way forward" and will have huge resources put behind it.

Discomfort because now the trouble starts. The original champions of SDN will now be watchful of big vendor highjacking of the SDN concept via the OpenDaylight Project - perhaps in an attempt to protect large investments already made in HDN (Hardware Defined Networking) or to slow down SDN or even divert some of its strategic elements towards specific proprietary technology.

The fact that the ONF has chosen not to join the OpenDaylight Project, proffering instead a cautious welcome and an undertaking to 'watch with interest' gives it the option to snub the big vendor grouping should it detect too great a degree of protectionism in its deliberations.

This is not just a struggle involving standards bodies: we expect an often heated discussion between vendors, users and (above all) service providers to run and run.

Here are some opening shots in the battle in the form of recent interviews TelecomTV has undertaken in and around the topic of SDN.VIDEO:Spotlight falls back on the network with NFV and SDN

Intel's John Woodget, global director for the telecoms sector, talks with Martyn Warwick about the renaissance of the network. For the past five years the focus of the industry has been on the shiny device and its apps. This year, says John, we're hearing much more about the network and its direction: concepts like Network Functions Virtualisation and Software Defined Networks are going to be where it's at.VIDEO: Executive Insight: Breaking down the walls of the data centre

Martyn Warwick talks with John Dunne, the CTO of pioneering Irish start-up Intune, about how Software Defined Networks (SDN) will provide the means to simplify and control complex switches in the age of Big Data and will bring together the IT and telecoms worlds in ways never seen before.VIDEO:EMC comes out of the data centre to take a mobile call

John Roese, Chief Technology Officer at EMC, on how the company has quietly but deliberately positioned itself in a number of networking and IT sweet-spots for the data centre and enterprise markets - things like virtualisation and big data analytics. Guess what? These are precisely the capabilities that mobile operators need as they look to the cloud and advanced data processing and analytics to spearhead their next business transformation. EMC, claims John, is delighted to welcome a new set of potential customers.