Home   /   Events   /   Open Networking – Agility and Control for a New Era of Connectivity

8am San Fran | 11am New York | 4pm London | 5pm Paris

Open-source software has been transforming the IT ecosystem for the past 20 years, thanks to platforms like Linux, Android and Chrome OS that allow application developers to collaborate and share ideas free of restraint. In the world of wide area networking, open standards have been slower to take off. Many WANs still run on a proprietary model, controlled by the vision of one vendor. This situation is rapidly changing, thanks to the work of the innovators, such as those behind Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC), an open source network operating system. SONiC, and other initiatives like it, are pointing to a new future for connectivity. It’s not all about the WAN, with much that’s new in open-source networking occurring in clusters, clouds, and data centers. The eBPF-based initiative is concerned with networking, observability and security. Look out too for innovations in open-source load balancing and proxies.

Open networking standards in all their forms mean that enterprises are no longer locked-in with proprietary solutions, they now have a far wider choice of vendor hardware and software when building their networks. Enterprises benefit from major cost savings, plus the freedom to configure connectivity according to needs.

Our analyst chair is Brad Casemore, VP Research, Datacenter and Multicloud Networking with IDC, and he will share unique findings and then lead a detailed discussion, featuring several industry experts, to explore what open networks really mean and the benefits they bring to businesses in the real world, followed by a short media Q&A.

Analyst Chair: Brad Casemore
VP Research, Datacenter and Multicloud Networking, IDC