Light Reading/Heavy Reading and Linux Foundation Networking (LFN) have released a vendor-sponsored report titled “Open Networking Survey Report”. The report speaks volumes about service providers - across the globe - rapidly and pervasively embracing the power, flexibility and economics of open source software to drive the future of communications services. Take a look at the report here. You might also enjoy Roz Roseboro’s blog covering the same topic. Roz is Light Reading’s Principal Analyst - Cloud Infrastructure and Management. In her blog, our own Jim Thompson, Netgate CTO, figures prominently.

The report, sponsored by seven vendors, including Netgate, explores the hottest open networking topics in the industry: open networking performance, automation, cloud-native architectures, big data and analytics, software-defined networking (SDN) and management and orchestration (MANO).

Our initial TNSR™ offering has been targeted at CSPs and large enterprises from inception. Leveraging the power of FD.io’s VPP and DPDK - and the management scale and flexibility of a RESTFUL API and YANG data model - TNSR gives CSPs the price-performance, total cost of ownership, and services flexibility required to meet the needs of rapidly evolving communication services.

Interesting points uncovered by the report include:

“73% of CSPs say they are “extremely” or “mostly” confident that open networking solutions can achieve the same level of performance as traditional networking solutions.”

This rings out loud and clear that modern software-based packet processing can easily compete with much more expensive, proprietary solutions underpinned by ASICs and FPGAs.

“Three-quarters of CSP respondents say that cost savings are the expected outcome of deploying open networking solutions. Just under half, 48%, say that they would consider open networking if it is at least price-competitive with traditional networking solutions.”

This point is particularly interesting in that conventional wisdom is that for open source-based solutions to have strong consideration for CSP networks - sizeable price concessions are required. In fact, the report reveals that, while cost savings are important, freedom from vendor lock-in and faster innovation are very strong drivers for open source adoption.

“Technology immaturity is CSPs’ biggest concern regarding deploying open networking solutions to improve network performance, with 46% of respondents indicating as such.”

What makes this finding interesting is that the number one statement we hear from customers is they see the power of open source secure networking technology, but have tried to make it work on their on, and just can’t get there. That is exactly why Netgate exists. Our core competency is not only in significant development contribution to open source software, but also in converting open source projects into enterprise and carrier-grade solutions - ready for prime time.

If you are a CSP, here are three steps you can take to learn more:

  1. Not yet familiar with TNSR? Get a quick overview in this three minute video.
  2. Want to get a glimpse into some early TNSR performance testing? Get our TNSR Performance Testing White Paper.
  3. Have an application idea you’d like to explore? Send us an email at sales@netgate.com.