NEM's Go Soft: Reinvention for a Virtualized Network

By: Becky Bracken

To say that network virtualization has been disruptive to the network equipment manufacturers' (NEMs) business, feels a bit paltry. Asking gear makers like Cisco, Oracle, Nokia, Huawei, and their fellow competitors to suddenly reinvent themselves as software companies is a little like asking Toyota to get into the oil business. SDN, NFV, Cloud and rampant network and data center virtualization has dealt an irreparable blow to expensive, unwieldy, clunky boxes. Networks are quickly evolving to become little more than sophisticated software running on an open stack and commerical-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware. Not a great development for those companies that just a handful of months ago were earning most of their revenue through selling network equipment.

Hardware and software, it would seem, are finally breaking up for good. It's been complicated for some time, but hardware and software are decoupling and the opportunities for software and equipment vendors, both long-term players and scrappy upstarts are huge. Likewise, service providers stand to gain efficiencies, automation, and agility that hardware could never offer.

Of course, not all network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) are starting with the same software capacity, expertise and market share. While die-hard gear heads like Cisco may have a harder time wrapping their model around a software-defined marketplace, Ericsson and Nokia, with robust software offerings and experience, seem to have so far enjoyed a bit of an easier transition.

“I think that equipment makers are forced to understand the existing software landscape better so they can make predictions about the future,” says Ericsson's Grant Lenahan, Executive Directior, Innovation, Software Business Unit. 

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Cisco is unsurprisingly remaining true to its roots and taking a hardware-based approach. Cisco's solution is built on OpenFlow, giving it a nod to pure SDN; but, in its current form, remains a closed-look hardware-centric, API-centric approach to SDN.

“Cisco advocates a broader view of SDN that incorporates multiple models for network programability, in addition to the controller/agent model defined by the ONF for OpenFlow,” according to Cisco's whitepaper outlining its SDN strategy. Instead, Cisco proposes an Open Network Environment (ONE) architecture delivered by a combination of API's, a production-ready OpenFlow controller, and a suite of virtual overlays, service and orchestration in the data center.

“Cisco is positive about OpenFlow,” the whitepaper adds almost reading like it's trying to convince itself. “Cisco has developed a full-featured, production-ready OpenFlow Controller called the Cisco Extensible Network Controller. Several Cisco switches have OpenFlow agents available, and our roadmap calls for fully supported agents on the majority of Cisco routing and switching products.”