Stories by John Dix

Cisco describes its SDN vision: A Q&A with Soni Jiandani

Soni Jiandani is one of Cisco's serial entrepreneurs, having been a key member of the teams that developed everything from the Nexus 5000 to Cisco's Unified Computing System (which in five years has leapt to the top of the x86 blade server market in North America, according to IDC). Today Jiandani is Senior Vice President of Cisco's Insieme business unit, the group pushing the company's Software Defined Networking vision. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix caught with Jiandani to get her take on how SDN plays out.

SDN: The next steps

Software Defined Networking technology is maturing and there are several real world use cases, but for most shops it is still a question of figuring out how we get there from here. In this Network World special report we analyze the promise and the options:

Healthcare provider finds SDN is the proper Rx

William Hanna, vice president of technical services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), went out looking for a way to add capacity to a backup network and found what he wanted in Software Defined Networking (SDN) tools from Alcatel-Lucent. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix sat down with Hanna to learn about the process and experience.

Capital letter 'S,' 'D,' 'N' will never happen: VMware exec

Rack and stack that network and then walk away and leave it alone. VMware's NSX technology will provide all the control necessary going forward, says Steve Mullaney, senior vice president and general manager of VMware's Networking & Security Business Unit.

Where we stand with SDN

One gauge of industry progress on the software-defined networking front is the momentum of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), the user-lead group that is spelling out the core SDN standards and championing the cause.

You can't make it run better if you don't know where the problem lies

Riverbed Technology is best known for its WAN optimization tools, but the company has branched out over the years through multiple acquisitions. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix caught up with Eric Wolford, president of the company's Products Group, to see how the company is trying to help customers squeeze more efficiency out of their IT resources.

SDN: The user view

It is still early days in the emergence of software defined networking, so there aren't many users around to share their experiences and expectations, but there are a few. Network World's editor in chief tracked down Steve Wallace, executive director of InCNTRE, Indiana University's Indiana Center for Network Translational Research and Education, which is already using the technology in a production environment. The school is also playing a role in the tech's evolution.

The promise of software defined networking

If you aren't intimately familiar with software defined networking, don't fret. Only 10 per cent of 450 IT practitioners at a recent Network World event raised their hands when asked if they understand SDN. But if the emerging technology lives up to its promise to redefine networking as we know it, there is no time like the present to dig in and learn more.

Google making steady progress in the enterprise

Google Enterprise is making inroads on many fronts, winning converts to everything from its productivity tools to its cloud offerings. We recently caught up with President of Google Enterprise, Amit Singh, for a progress report and to discuss what comes next.

SDN/OpenFlow has Cisco jumping

You can gauge the promise of an emerging technology by the reaction of the biggest legacy player potentially threatened by the new arrival. It walks a fine line between jumping in too quickly and sanctioning a nascent movement that may not otherwise get off the ground, and reacting too slowly and losing advantage to fleet-footed upstarts.