Moving Towards an SD-WAN API

SD-WAN is the application of SDN principles to the WAN. SDN provided for the separation of the control plane from the data plane, with…

Best Practices for Hybrid Cloud Connectivity

Cloud architectures allow automated, on-demand delivery of applications and services, flexibly deployed across large, cost-effective resource pools…

Simplification Will Accelerate Software-Defined Data Center Adoption

by Steven Shalita Organizations are looking for ways to scale-out their data center network to meet the increasing demands of the business. The digital enterprise, fueled by new applications, hyper-growth of the Cloud, and adoption of hybrid IT are all driving dramatic change. In order for organizations to fully realize the potential of technology, they are looking to modernize their network and leverage the Cloud for increased agility, speed and consistency. This means new approaches and capabilities are required. Ideally, all aspects of a data…

A Common API to Program the Enforcement Points

by Mukesh Gupta When ONUG SDSS (Software Defined Security Services) working group brought together IT executives from large enterprises including Bank of America, Barclays, Cigna, Salesforce, Tesla, Visa, Wells Fargo, etc., they prioritized the following two security use cases to the top of their list:

The Self Operating Network

by Derick Winkworth  Software Defined Networking has passed through its first major cycle. Many associated ideas have been consigned to the trash bin of history, while many other ideas have either evolved or sprung anew. As a network engineer I really hoped, back in 2011, that SDN would address many of my day-to-day challenges. With very few exceptions, this did not happen. In fact, within the SDN movement there was open disregard for network engineers. They were often referred to as the “mainframe” engineers of…

How Next-Gen Analytics and Verification Helps Realize Resilient, Secure Networks

by Brighten Godfrey At the ONUG Fall 2016 conference in New York, one theme struck me: the community realized more than ever the need for advanced analytics and verification. A poll of IT users at the event, for example, highlighted that the siloed nature of current monitoring solutions prevents them from understanding the entire network, end-to-end.

Seeking Truth in Networking: From Testing To Verification

by Brandon Heller Sharp network admins already verify the network in a variety of ways, right?  Pings, traceroutes, and custom scripts verify expected connectivity.  Link and CPU utilization monitoring programs verify normal operation.  Maybe pushed configs are read back in to verify that the device accepted them.  And isn’t verification just another term for testing, anyway?

There Are No Private, Public, or Hybrid Clouds—Only Islands of Infrastructure to be Consumed

by Bruno Germain At the root of John Boyd’s “OODA loop” methodology, there is the notion that we need to acknowledge and work with levels of “uncertainty”—gaps that result when applying established models to new and changing contexts[i]. Unfortunately, the networking community—desperate for operational stability—largely ignores these mismatches, designing network and security architectures as if they can dictate how applications are deployed.

Apps are On the Move, What’s a CIO to Do?

by George McGregor  People have been on the move for a while – workspaces, applications and data are increasingly accessed from mobile devices. This has had a big impact on application delivery.  For any business these days, its all about apps and its all about the customer experience delivered by these apps. 

The New IT Culture, Skills, and Organization Needed for Hybrid Cloud Environments

by Dr. Robert B. Cohen In the move to hybrid infrastructure, the ability to commit new code faster and run new applications quickly gives agile firms an advantage in deploying new services. These innovations change the skills required for new jobs and enhance the role of developers. During the move to DevOps and containers, firms have created work teams or collaborative groups. They replace the more time-consuming, rigidly structured organizational design employed to develop monolithic software, where each level in a multi-stage process had to…