Former Cisco CEO John Chambers got more feisty as he approached retirement this year. He's a competitor and a tough salesman, and we got to see that side of him in a less diluted form.
After a couple years of Cisco de-emphasizing competition with VMware, the gloves are off (or they're on, if you're thinking of a boxing-gloves metaphor). On a February earnings call, Chambers called out VMware as a competitor and, for good measure, predicted Cisco would "crush" white-box switches. Read more.
4. Enter The Octagon: Cisco ACI vs. VMware NSXThe battle between Cisco's Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and VMware's NSX was a source of fascination for readers all year. Other top stories included FireHost's customer perspective on the two (FireHost, now named Armor, chose NSX) and the migration of some Cisco engineers to the VMware side.
The products don't actually perform the same function and can even be used together. But each represents a different path toward SDN, and in that sense, many customers are pitting the two against each other. This article captured the essence of that battle. Read more.
3. Broadcom Sues Innovium, a Brand New Ethernet StartupYou've probably never heard of Innovium, because the Ethernet chip startup hasn't gotten off the ground. Broadcom leapt in February to sue Innovium founders Mohammed Issa and Puneet Agarwal for breach of contract, claiming they were unfairly poaching employees and that they'd improperly used knowledge from Broadcom to attract investors. Innovium disputes all of it.
The case is still languishing in court. Motions filed by both parties to seal some of the evidence will be heard in February. Read more.
2. P4 Language Aims to Take SDN Beyond OpenFlowWe're told repeatedly that P4 isn't intended to replace OpenFlow. Fair enough, although I think that's certainly a possibility. Either way, the P4 programming language represents one vision of SDN's next evolutionary step, and with the backing of OpenFlow granddaddy Nick McKeown, it's a project worth following. Read more.
1. Why Juniper Ousted CEO Shaygan KheradpirJuniper entering 2016 seems like a different company from the one that entered 2015, as SDxCentral's Scott Raynovich has pointed out. In February, we uncovered the alleged reasons for Shaygan Kheradpir's abrupt firing from the CEO spot. He wasn't popular with engineers, but the real problem seemed to be the friction he created with customers. Juniper wasn't nearly as exciting during 2015, and the company is probably happy to keep it that way in 2016. Read more.