ONS2012 Notes 1

I spent yesterday at the Open Networking Summit (ONS) in CA and will be there today.  Rather than a long missive, here are a few quick thoughts:

1.  GOOG: A very enjoyable and thoughtful presentation by Urs.  What it tells me is with a lot of resources, talented people and a design goal specific to their needs – rather than the needs of many; it is possible to build your own networking device.

2. Nicira: After the Monday article in Wired that surmised a world without Cisco due in part to Nicira, I was disappointed by the presentation.  I did not need a Nicira product pitch, but I did not need to have my time wasted either.  I think that when expectations are raised to a hubris level, there is some responsibility to answer those expectations.

3. CSCO: A few thoughts on Cisco.  I saw a number of people from the investment management business (sell side and buy side) and each one told me they were there seeking insight as to the fate of Cisco.  Cisco also revealed some details about their Insieme investment.  If you read the above article on Nicira in Wired and then read the article on Insieme, I do not think it is too hard a stretch to believe that Cisco would be building an SDN platform that implements OpenFlow in ASICs and they plan to create a world in which OpenFlow controllers and abstraction layers are relegated to 1% of the market.  Cisco products use ASICs for their implementation of OpenFlow and the rest of the world is left to follow the merchant silicon track for OpenFlow implementation.   Just a random thought.

More thoughts after today when I can find the time to write.

/wrk

* It is all about the network stupid, because it is all about compute. *

** Comments are always welcome in the comments section or in private. **