As the hype cycle around aspects of  concepts like software-defined networking continue, customers are continuing to sift through and educate themselves to determine what is real and actionable.  I have had my fair share of participation in several events over the last 24 months,  and have been speaking to different audiences both gaining and sharing insights in the process.

One person I spoke with recently was Dr. Jim Metzler. We seem to be crossing paths at multiple venues including Interop, the Network World SDN roadshows currently underway in a few cities in the United States, as well, as at the Open Network Summit in Santa Clara a few weeks ago.

Jim has become the messiah of sorts, on some of these emerging technologies, and is frequently consulted -both as part of his day job at Ashton, Metzler and associates and during his role hosting various industry panels on these topics. I thought it would be good to host the host and get some of his perspectives here, as we both got together at the recently held Open Networking Summit at Santa Clara.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVn4ywvCGq8

Perpsectives on Open Networking and SDN

Open Networking Summit was a good conference that brought in various thought leaders from the industry. While there were a variety of presentations, and good questions,  it appeared that the use-cases were still evolving.  And even if the use-case was provided, there were questions on the business case. While there is clearly more work to be done, it is definitely encouraging that a whole lot of people are now looking at it holistically to take the possibilities of open networking to the next level.

Listen to Jim as he discussed some of this and elaborates on the trends, customer inquiries and  patterns he's seeing across different audiences.