ONF Founders To Speak At Information Session And Next Generation Networking Panels On Wednesday, May 11th In Las Vegas
PALO ALTO, CA – May 6, 2011 – The Open Networking Foundation (ONF), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting a new approach to networking called Software-Defined Networking (SDN),
announced today the addition of nine new members to the organization.
New members Big Switch Networks, Comcast, Extreme Networks, IP Infusion, Netronome, Nicira Networks, Nokia Siemens Networks, Plexxi Inc., and Vello Systems join the six founding member companies, Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo!, as well as 17 other companies that were members on the March 22 launch. ONF will highlight its members and mission next Wednesday May 11, in two panels and in the InteropNet OpenFlow® Lab at the Interop trade show and conference to be held in Las Vegas May 8 - 12.
"The ONF provides a great opportunity for both the consumers and the producers of OpenFlow® technology to come together and drive innovation and adoption of the technology as a way to address the challenges of growing complexity in networks. Extreme Networks, as a new member of the Foundation, looks forward to contributing to move the technology forward," said Shehzad T. Merchant VP, Technology, Extreme Networks.
“ONF has the potential to revolutionize the way networks operate. Nokia Siemens Networks, as a leading vendor in telecommunication, is looking into this technology as a very promising candidate to support our vision of networks as part of a virtualized service infrastructure,” said Lauri Oksanen, Head of Research in Nokia Siemens Networks.
“Vello Systems is excited to be part of the Open Networking Foundation, which supports our focus on unified control for the global cloud to deliver WAN resource optimization,” said Karl May, CEO and President of Vello Systems. “Open networking is a major benefit to enterprise and service provider customers since OpenFlow® will simplify management of multi-vendor networks while accelerating introduction of innovative new services.”
Throughout the duration of the Interop exhibits, ONF will join some of its members in the InteropNet OpenFlow® Lab booth on the show floor. This year, OpenFlow® is the sole feature of the InteropNet Lab, which each year focuses on an exciting, new technology. Over a dozen companies will have OpenFlow-related exhibits and demos. ONF will also hold an informational session Wednesday, May 11th at 11 – 11:45 am to highlight the Foundation vision and the future of SDN. The session will take place in Conference Room Reef C; speakers include:
- Nick McKeown, founding director of ONF and faculty director of the Clean Slate program at Stanford University; OpenFlow® and SDN arose from joint work between Stanford and Berkeley
- Dan Pitt, executive director of ONF
- Najam Ahmad, director of network engineering at Facebook and ONF Board Member
Nick McKeown will also participate in The Real Next Generation Network panel on Wednesday May 11 from 3:15 – 4:15 pm in room Breakers L.
In addition to the nine new members, ONF’s 23 existing members include Broadcom, Brocade, Ciena, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Facebook, Force10 Networks, Google, HP, IBM, Juniper Networks, Marvell, Microsoft, NEC, Netgear, NTT, Riverbed Technology, Verizon, VMware, and Yahoo!.
“We couldn’t be happier with the rapid growth in members of ONF. It shows a real collaboration between network operators, equipment vendors, networking and virtualization software suppliers, and chip technology providers to promote innovation through Software-Defined Networking,” said Dan Pitt, executive director of ONF. “At Interop, ONF and its members will accelerate this process and we are excited to work together to quickly fulfill the promise of SDN.”
