News in Networking: SD-WAN for $3.3B and Facebook’s Free Open/R Networking Tool

This week’s top story picks from the Kentik team.

This week, we learned the SD-WAN market is forecasted to reach $3.3 billion by 2021, according to a new report from IHS Markit. Everyone from tech giants like Cisco and VMware to telcos like AT&T and Charter are taking note and getting in on the trend. Also this week, Facebook open-sourced its Open/R networking development platform. Facebook uses Open/R to support its wide-area networks, data center fabric and wireless mesh topologies.

Here are those headlines and more:

• Cisco, VMware in SD-WAN market ‘two-horse race’ (SDxCentral)
  “VMware and Cisco have acquired the two SD-WAN market share leader positions, making the SD-WAN market a two-horse race for the number-one spot,” said IHS Markit Analyst Cliff Grossner according to SDxCentral. “And we could see even more consolidation as vendors set out to add SD‑WAN to their capability sets, especially since the technology is key to supporting connectivity in the multi-clouds that enterprises are building.”
• Charter taps SD-WAN to boost off-net reac (Light Reading)
  “Spectrum Business, the enterprise arm of Charter Communications, is jumping into the SD-WAN market, but doing so in a way that is distinctively different from its telco competitors. Spectrum is leveraging its existing Ethernet footprint — it is the fourth largest US Ethernet provider — and a new customer portal to create an SD-WAN overlay using Nuage Networks’ software,” reported Light Reading.
• AT&T makes its SD-WAN ‘dynamic’ (SDxCentral)
  Also in on the SD-WAN hype is AT&T. According to SDxCentral, Vice President for Intelligent Edge Josh Goodell said, that the company’s over-the-top (OTT) SD-WAN offering, “based on VeloCloud’s technology, can dynamically route traffic across multiple carrier links. The carrier’s currently counts around 100,000 SD-WAN deployments under an internally-derived static configuration.”
• IoT will be a cash cow for carriers (TotalTelecom)
  “The Internet of Things (IoT) will open up new opportunities for carriers to sell enhanced data services to a wide range of new subscribers, Huawei’s deputy chairman and rotating CEO Ken Hu said at the Chinese vendor’s Global Mobile Broadband Forum,” according to TotalTelecom.
• Alibaba’s next-gen data center uses Cisco tech (SDxCentral)
  “The newest Alibaba Cloud data center in Beijing uses Cisco technology. It comes as the Chinese cloud provider has vowed to “match or surpass” Amazon Web Services (AWS) by 2019,” reported SDxCentral.
• Facebook open-sources its Open/R networking development platform (SiliconANGLE)
  “We have been working with external partners and operators to support and use Open/R, and we invite more operators, [Internet service providers], vendors, systems integrators and researchers to leverage Open/R as a platform for implementing new network routing ideas and applications,” noted Facebook engineers, according to SiliconANGLE.
• Broadcom closes acquisition of network gear maker Brocade (Reuters)
  “Broadcom Ltd said on Friday it closed its acquisition of network gear maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc, giving it a larger share of the data center products market,” reported Reuters.
• Automated networks are a must for 5G, says Vodafone (TotalTelecom)
  “Operators will need to harness the full power of artificial intelligence (AI) and process automation technology to cope with the data generated on their 5G networks, according to Johan Wibergh, chief technology officer at Vodafone Group,” reported TotalTelecom.
• GitHub adds security alerts on flaws in popular software libraries (ZDNet)
  “Development platform GitHub has launched a new service that searches project dependencies in JavaScript and Ruby for known vulnerabilities and then alerts project owners if it finds any. The new service aims to help developers update project dependencies as soon as GitHub becomes aware of a newly announced vulnerability,” noted ZDNet.
• Google Fiber now sells $55/mo gigabit Internet…in one city (Ars Technica)
  “Google Fiber’s gigabit Internet service has consistently been priced at $70 a month since it launched in 2012, but it’s now available for just $55 in the ISP’s latest city,” reported Ars Technica.

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