SDNCentral SDN and NFV Weekly Roundup — August 29, 2014

Here’s our gathering of the week’s news bits around software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), and related topics.

… At the Hot Interconnects conference this week, Facebook announced it is in production testing for its Wedge open-source switch design, as Light Reading reported. Wedge, a top-of-rack switch with 16 40-Gb/s Ethernet ports, was created as the foundation of Facebook’s disaggregated switching technology and will be submitted to the Open Compute Project. This will be the first switch contribution of Facebook’s to the OCP, and has been described as having a “hybrid SDN” architecture, one that will still have some intelligence stored in the control plane. (Be sure to check out our white box theme page for continued coverage of OCP and bare-metal switching.)

… Trouble in paradise, er, the executive offices at Red Hat: CTO Brian Stevens unexpectedly resigned from his post and all anyone got was a four sentence “press release” on the announcement. A Red Hat spokesperson said Stevens left to explore other opportunities, but some hint that the real reason was a tense relationship with President Paul Cormier. Think Stevens’ departure has anything to do with him being left out of a pretty hefty incentive package earlier this month? Things that make you go, “Hmm…”

… IBM company SoftLayer has announced the availability of bare metal servers that can be deployed in less than half an hour. They are single-tenant servers that will connect directly to SoftLayer’s private global network, and users will be able to choose from four base configurations.

… F5 Networks acquired Defense.Net, the companies announced last Friday. The deal expands F5’s portfolio of security solutions for defense against DDoS attacks on networks, data centers, and applications.

… Avaya and HP announced a multiyear agreement to offer cloud-based unified communications and contact center technology as-a-service.

… Egenera introduced PAN Manager 8.0, including support for standard x86 rack servers. The company says the new capability will let organizations create and manage both distributed rack servers and blade servers from different server vendors.

… The Optical Internetworking Forum and Open Networking Foundation will work together to start testing Transport SDN in global carrier lab environments this month. Carriers participating include China Mobile, China Telecom, Telus, and Verizon.

… Earlier in the year, Infonetics Research analyst Michael Howard suggested SDN decision making might slow down switch and router sales. The firm’s preliminary second-quarter data suggest he’s onto something.

… Infonetics also shared excerpts from a new survey that highlights operators’ plans to move router functions from physical routers to software routers. And although industry talk says otherwise, survey participants said they have little current or future demand for a multilayer data or transport control plane.

… A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council highlighted the large amounts of electricity that data centers use to support business and online activities. Improved energy efficiency could cut energy waste by at least 40 percent, saving more than $3 billion annually, the NRDC suggested

… Active Broadband Networks launched what it says is the first software-defined broadband network gateway (SD-BNG), which will implement SDN and NFV to reduce the cost and complexity of broadband service delivery.

… At Hot Interconnects, 6WIND announced the winners of its software development contest, “Speed Matters: The Challenge.” The grand prize went to Aeponyx, a telecom optical-equipment vendor.

In case you missed them, here are the other stories SDxCentral covered this week:

• VMworld Newswire: NSX, Storage, and a Touch of DevOps
• Midokura Wraps a Network Virtualization Deal in Norway
• VMware’s EVO Doesn’t Scare Nutanix
• Nutanix Raises the Stakes by Raising $140M More
• Quanta Shows Off a VMware EVO:RACK (But Doesn’t Ship Yet)
• Dell & F5 Strike Partnerships With VMware NSX
• HP Acquisition Targets Could Include SDN & DevOps
• VMware NSX Puts the Spotlight on Security
• VMware Declares Docker Containers Are Friends, Not Foes
• VMworld: VMware Gets Its Hands Dirty in Hardware, OpenStack, and Containers