Everywhere you turn these days you hear the term “open” in networking. The idea of openness in networking has come a long way in the past year and it’s now considered the de facto standard way that we’ll achieve interoperability and innovation.
OpenDaylight is taking another step closer to helping the industry achieve the vision of SDN and NFV with its second software release called Helium announced today. It’s aimed at developers and users who are progressing on their journey to SDN. But the most unique thing about Helium is what it signifies for the industry. A year ago conversations around SDN were all about protocols or proprietary controllers. Today it’s all about openness. I fully expect to see many vendors announce and release products based on OpenDaylight Helium. Here is one early example, but be on the lookout for many more!
Andrew Lerner of Gartner pointed out on his blog that “[p]erhaps the biggest benefit of SDN is that it fosters long-term innovation in networking…”
