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”Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.”
-- Henry Kissinger
Following the early successes with network programmability, the natural question that arises is “where do we go form here?” Certainly some good things have been accomplished, but in many ways the real work is just beginning. David Ward just posted some musings on where we go next with programmatic interfaces for the network--its a good read and I encourage you to check it out.
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So, goings on with OpenFlow and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) are always lively topics for discussion. Since our announcement of Cisco ONE at CiscoLive, a number of folks have asked me if the announcement of our strategy changes our view of the ONF or the role of OpenFlow—the short answer is, simply, no.
We continue to strongly support ONF and its efforts related to SDN and our support has and will continue to been demonstrated in tangible ways. One of the elements of the Cisco ONE announcement is onePK, which is an enabling technology and one of the things it has enabled is the development of our OpenFlow agents. Similarly, we have introducing controllers and working with our customers to develop the technology.
What seems to surprise a lot of folks is that our contributions to ONF go beyond our own internal development efforts:
Technology Advisory Group - Chartered to provide high-level guidance on any technical issues faced by the ONF Board in which feedback is requested.
Hybrid Working Group - Document the requirements for a hybrid programmable forwarding plane (HPFP).
Beyond these two working groups, the Cisco folks, including Jan Medved, David Meyer, Josh Littlefield, Andrew Thurber, Alex Clemm, Mark Szczesniak and Bhushan Kanekar have been active in other workgroups including the Configuration & Management Working Group and the Extensibility Working Group.
Beyond these efforts, David Meyer has been a rock star across the board including contributions to the “OF futures” discussions and recently received an award from the ONF for his contributions.
To net things out, Cisco expects to be a pacesetter with regards to network programmability and SDN and our efforts with ONF will continue to be part of that strategy.
Tags: ONF, Open Networking Foundation, OpenFlow, SDN, standards, Standrds
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The onePK announcement Ric describes in the previous blog entry is game changing. It also intersects a trend which has gone fairly unnoticed in the networking standards areas. The importance of new standards is declining relative to advances in software and hardware. Read More »
Tags: containers, Linux, networking software, onePK, OpenFlow, SDN, standards
You no doubt already know about the coming 802.11ac wireless standard. And, if you’re facing a future bandwidth crunch due to the demands of increased Wi-Fi client density because of BYOD, you’re probably wondering how to prepare for the increased capacity and performance made possible by 802.11ac. So what can you do now, given that enterprise-class products that support the standard won’t be available until 2013?
The Cisco Aironet 3600 access point can help you bridge the gap between what you need today and what you want for tomorrow. Deploy an Aironet 3600 with 802.11n, and you’ll get a future-proof investment that delivers industry-leading performance now—without sacrificing the ability to add the scale of 802.11ac later.
Take a look under the hood of the 3600 and you’ll see the only 802.11n access point on the market today that supports 802.11n-based 4x4 MIMO with three spatial streams and Cisco’s CleanAir and ClientLink technologies. That means you can get an average of 33% percent better performance right now on mobile devices, and use up to 38% less battery on Wi-Fi clients.
What you’ll also see is a modular slot. This is where the industry’s very first enterprise class 802.11ac solution comes in. Literally. When 802.11ac products are certified in early 2013, you can simply plug a Cisco 802.11ac radio module into the slot and immediately upgrade your access point to leverage the new standard.
This is the second module announced for the Aironet 3600, joining the spectrum monitoring module. The spectrum module scans all Wi-Fi channels in succession (not just the one the AP uses for traffic), giving outstanding visibility for mission-critical applications, security scanning, and interference troubleshooting.
The bottom line is you can get leading performance today while you future-proof your investment for tomorrow. In other words, there’s no longer a need to compromise. You can act now and lay the groundwork for tomorrow.
Find out more about 802.11ac fundamentals here and look for upcoming webinars about the Aironet 3600 soon.
Tags: 11ac, 802.11ac, access points, standards
Though we often take it for granted, the global data network is one of the wonders of our world. Without that network, users around the world would not be able to surf the web, post video and text, and communicate with each other using voice, chat, and e-mail.
The success of the global data network rests on interoperability standards that were created by standards development organizations like the IETF, IEEE, ITU-T, and W3C. In those organizations, expert technologists meet to create the standards that define how different products made by different vendors will work together. Without standards, the Internet as we know it would not exist.
Cisco is proud that our employees have played leading roles in the creation of interoperability standards, just as they have invented many of the foundational technologies used in the global data network. As a result of their efforts, Cisco has a portfolio of telecom and networking patents, including patents required to implement widely used interoperability standards, that is second to none.
While we have been at the forefront of networking technology, we recognize that our customers want technically excellent products and products that work well together. For example, our unified communications customers often use Cisco products for voice and video, but products from our competitors for e-mail or instant messaging. They are sometimes frustrated when products they purchase from different vendors don’t work well together, or when using products from one vendor forces them to implement proprietary voice or video protocols that do not enjoy broad industry support. In unified communications, as in other areas, collaboratively developed standards are a common language that products made by different vendors can use to make their products work together, creating a better experience for customers.
Tags: innovation, interoperability, Patents, standards
