Overview of 'Open' Software Defined Networking (SDN) for Business Managers

If you don't understand what Software Defined Networking (SDN) is, don't worry about it. When asked, only 10% of 450 information technology (IT) specialists at a recent Network World event raised their hands and said they understood what it was all about.

Obviously, if you’re in IT you will definitely want to know about the topic of Software Defined Networking (SDN). For business managers in most corporations, not so much. However, this article attempts to provide a high level overview of the topic for managers so they don't get lost when the IT staff inevitably starts talking about SDN and why the organization needs to invest in it.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a relatively new approach for managing and operation large scale telecommunication networks. SDN involves decoupling control of the network from the physical infrastructure. It allows network administrators in your data center to better manage your telecommunication networking resources that often consist of equipment from multiple vendors.

Background

Sometime in the year 2000, the Gartner Group recognized the emergence of programmable networks as the next big thing for the Internet. There was a growing mismatch between market requirements and network capabilities. In response, the industry started creating the Software Defined Networking (SDN) architecture and associated 'open' networking standards.

The growth of mobile devices, server virtualization, cloud services, and the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) are among the trends driving the telecommunication industry to reexamine traditional networking architectures. Many conventional networks are hierarchical, built with tiers of Ethernet switches arranged in a tree structure. This design made sense when client-server computing was dominant, but that architecture is ill-suited to meet the dynamic computing, storage, and communication needs of today's enterprise data centers and telecommunication networks.

'Open' SDN Technology & Solutions

Open source software now plays a permanent role in the world of enterprise IT systems. Gartner forecasts that open source technology will be included in 85% of all commercial software packages by 2015 and 95% of mainstream IT organizations will use a range of open source software components. Currently, one of the fastest growing segments within the world of open source software is Software Defined Networking (SDN). The SDN market is projected to surge from $360M to $3.52B by 2018.

The Open Networking Foundation (OFN) was founded back in 2011 to champion the cause of 'Open Standards' and Software Defined Networking (SDN). In addition to promoting SDN, it also supports the popular OpenFlow specification and communications interface for creating 'open' SDN solutions. Its board members include Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Google, Verizon and Deutsche Telecom.

SDN Benefits

The tangible benefits of transitioning to software defined networking are many. They range from better management control of an organization's telecommunication networks to significant reductions in operational costs over time. Next generation SDN solutions are not only designed to handle the many new technologies and infrastructure requirements associated with the cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT), but they provide a foundation for massive scalability to meet the future needs of organizations well into the 21^st century.

Other benefits include more vendor independence, transitioning away from expensive proprietary solutions, as well as increased flexibility and agility needed to innovate and meet future needs that have yet to be determined. In addition increased network performance will also translate into better service to network users - business customers.

According to Amin Vahdat, a Principle Engineer at Google, "The biggest advantage is being able to get better utilization out of our existing lines." Currently, the state-of-the-art in the industry is to run lines at 30% to 40% utilization. With SDN, organizations should be able to run wide area lines at close to 100% utilization.

Conclusion & Recommendations

In traditional data centers, network services have been provided by specific physical devices such as routers, switches, and firewalls. Each of these physical boxes was expensive, complex, physical fixture located in a large data center. All that will change when the network is no longer restricted by the hardware, but lies in the software. The trend is unmistakable. In the future, more and more network infrastructure and services will rely on 'open' standards-based software defined networking (SDN).

If your organization uses large telecommunications networks, better pay attention and plan on funding the your data centers acquisition and transition to the use of software defined networking (SDN) solutions. This applies to organizations in healthcare, education, manufacturing, retail, government and almost every other industry.

Selected Links OpenDaylight - An open-source platform for network programmability to enable Software Defined Networking (SDN) and create a solid foundation for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). OpenFlow - Managed by the Open Networking Foundation, it is an open source communications interface between the control and forwarding layers within an SDN architecture. Open Platform for NFV Project - A carrier-grade, integrated, open source reference platform intended to accelerate the introduction of new NFV and SDN products and services. Open Networking Foundaion (ONF) - Dedicated to the promotion and adoption of Software Defined Networking (SDN) through open standards development. OpenStack - Software designed to control large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a data center Project Floodlight - One of the world’s leading open source software-defined networking (SDN) community. SDN Central - One of the leading centralized source of news and resources for network functions virtualization (NFV) and software defined networking (SDN). * Also check out PLUMgrid, JedaNetworks, Embrane, Big Switch Networks and Midokura.

Understanding 'Open' Terminology

Having heard so many people using the terms “open systems”, “open computing”, and “open source” interchangeably, believing they all mean the same thing, it seemed appropriate to  write a short blog defining some of these terms and soliciting input on other ‘open’ terminology.

In general, the term “Open” often refers to initiatives whose inner workings are exposed to the public and are capable of being further modified or improved by any qualified individual or organization. “Open” is the opposite of “proprietary” or “closed” environments. In the case of software, this would mean that the “source code” is either open for all to access such as the Linux operating system or closed systems such as Windows  where only Microsoft programmers are able to change the source code. 

Other ‘open’ terminology often loosely bandied about include:

• Open Source Software (OSS) - OSS refers to a software program in which the source code is available to anyone for use. It can be modified by anyone from its original design free of up-front license fees. The source code is available for review, modification, and sharing by the at-large community.
• Open Standards - The set of specifications developed to define interoperability between diverse systems. The standards are owned and maintained by a vendor-neutral organization rather than by a specific commercial developer.
• Open Systems - Hardware and/or software systems that use or adhere to open architecture and standards that support interoperable to some degree. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_systems
• Open Architecture - An Information Technology (IT) architecture whose specifications are open and available to the public and that provide a platform that enables continued evolution and interoperability. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_architecture
• Open Access - Providing free and unrestricted access to journal articles, research findings, books, and other literature. See http://www.soros.org/openaccess
• Open Data – Data that anyone is free to use, reuse and redistribute without restriction. For more detail, see http://opendefinition.org.
• Open Data Format - A standard way for describing data formats, per the “Open Data Format Initiative (ODFI)”, and a program to validate that a data file is “ODFI compliant”. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
• Open Community - An environment in which the creative energy of large numbers of people is loosely coordinated into large, meaningful collaborative projects and generally avoids the traditional closed organization structure many are used to seeing in the private sector.
• Open Computing - This is a general term used to describe an “open” philosophy in building information technology (IT) systems. It represents the principle that includes architecture and technology procurement policies and practices that align IT with the goals of an open interoperable computer systems environment.
• Open Knowledge - An open system of knowledge transfer using the Internet and other information technologies to share best practices, emerging practices, knowledge and innovations within one or more “Community of Practice (CoP)” or across organizational boundaries. Visit http://okfn.org
• Open Publication License (OPL) - This is a license used for creating free and open publications created by the Open Content Project. Other alternatives include the Creative Commons licenses, the GNU Free Documentation License and the Free Art License. See http://opencontent.org/openpub/
• Open Source Hardware - Hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the hardware based on that ‘open’ design. See http://freedomdefined.org/OSHW

We are now seeing the emergence of new, related terms like ‘Open Culture’ and ‘Open Society’ as more people and organizations around the world adopt ‘open’ technologies and solutions and embrace the philosophy behind them.

Have you heard some other ‘open’ terminology being used that you can take a shot at defining and share with us?

8th Annual Future of Open Source Survey - 2014

Black Duck Software and North Bridge Venture Partners just announced the results of their annual Future of Open Source Survey for 2014. A record-breaking 1,240 industry influencers took part in this year’s survey.

This year’s results point toward the increased strategic role that open source software (OSS) has in today’s enterprises, the crucial function OSS plays in developing new technologies, the growth of first-time developers within the OSS community, and the impact it has on daily life.

 
According to Lou Shipley, President and CEO, Black Duck. “Open source has proven its quality and security, and reached a point of widespread democratization and proliferation. In particular, the survey revealed the three industries expected to be impacted most by OSS are Education (76%), Government (67%), and Healthcare (45%).
 
Survey respondents further reported that the top ten areas where OSS will impact our everyday lives include: 

Education  Mobility  Web privacy/security  Home appliance  Wearable devices

Robotics  Entertainment  Automotive  Gaming  Monetary exchange/payments

 
When asked what OSS technologies were leading in industry, 63% cited cloud computing & virtualization, 57% said content management, 52% selected mobile technology, and 51% answered security.
 
Also, 56% of corporations expect to contribute to more open source projects in 2014, signaling a change in the way enterprises view open source. When asked why they engaged with OSS communities, cost reduction was still the top response (61%), but many corporations (45%) responded that they also did so to gain a competitive advantage.
 
The survey shows enterprises now organizing to contribute back more actively; as they realize the importance of open source innovation to jumpstart careers and kickstart projects,” said Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. "Further, more new areas like the Internet of Things (IoT), which requires interoperability and extensibility, can only be met by open source initiatives, hence the emergence of new communities such as the AllSeen Alliance."
 
Additional Findings

• 72 percent of respondents chose to use OSS because it provides stronger security than proprietary solutions.
• Building upon this, 80 percent of respondents reported choosing open source because of its quality over proprietary alternatives.
• 68 percent of respondents said that OSS helped improve efficiency and lower costs
• 55 percent also indicated that OSS helped create new products and services
• 50 percent of enterprises report openly contributing to and adopting open source.

To see the full results from the 8^th Annual Open Source Survey conducted by North Bridge and Black Duck, go to Slideshare and view their presentation on The Future of Open Source .
 
Overall, the future looks bright not just for open source software (OSS), but for all things 'open'.  Share your thoughts.

Open Source Business Models - An Updated View

While I wanted to come up with as short a list as possible, I ended up with a list of approximately 15-20 of the most successful business models or strategies for organizations providing open source solutions. The optimum model for particular organizations to pursue depends on their mission, goals, licensing, context, and numerous other factors or variables, e.g. geography, competition, market.

Matthew Aslett, from the consulting firm “The 451 Group” authored a report  entitled “Open Source is not a Business Model.” One of the key conclusions of the report was that 'open source' is a business strategy or tactic, not a business model.

Quite often the number of business models, strategies, or tactics related to the development and deployment of open source solutions depends on the profit motive driving particular individuals and organizations. For example, consider the following. There are:

• non-profit organizations or communities that are not interested in making huge profits from their  free and open source software (FOSS) solutions, but are more interested in simply creating and distributing high quality, free software and solutions that will be of benefit to as many people as possible.
• then there are those individual or organizations that want to profit from the development, distribution, and retail sales associated with various open source products and commercial add-on modules they have created and released using somewhat restrictive licenses; and
• there are also numerous individuals or organizations that want to make a living and generate profits by offering a wide range of services in support of the open source solutions, e.g. installation, training, maintenance.

Over the past decade, numerous entrepreneurial individuals and organizations have tackled the idea of how to make money out of open source software. The idea that the only way of generating revenue from open source software is by providing support services - has become outdated.

There are now a wide variety of business strategies, tactics, or business models being employed by to generate revenue from open source software. For example:

• Many non-profit organizations obtain funding to support the development and distribution of their free and open source software (FOSS) solution from membership dues, subscription fees, donations, and/or grants.
• Many for profit organizations are paid for producing enhanced professional or enterprise versions of an open source product governed by very restrictive licenses. They may also offer add-on modules or bundle the open source software within other hardware and software products they offer.
• Other for profit organizations charge for a wide range of services, e.g. consulting, installation, documentation, training, system enhancements, software maintenance & patches.

Many other innovative companies are emerging and learning how to profit from the open source marketplace, e.g. news organizations, marketing firms, hosting, software-as-a-service (SAAS), open hardware, etc.  In addition, there are now organizations providing products and services related to open source hardware, open access publications, open data solutions, and more.

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Other Examples of Alternative 'Open Source' Business Models

The following is a list of some of the more common alternative forms of open source business models repeatedly described in numerous published articles:

Software Support Business Model
In this model, companies sell certified distributions of open source software along with a range of after-sale professional technical support services. Some companies provide immediate access to the latest patched and certified version of the software to their paying customers only.

Software Services Business Model
In this model, a company may sell installation, maintenance, documentation, and training services for the open source software.

Software as a Service (SaaS) Model
In a SaaS model, customers pay for the hosting, streaming, and delivery of the open source software solution on a managed set of servers offering cloud-based services.

Ad Ware Business Model
This is a variation on the SaaS model.  The user doesn't pay anything for use of the open source solution; the advertiser pays instead, e.g. Google, ZDNet.

Consulting Services
Under this model, a variety of consulting services are offered by a company. For example, a company may provide a range of management consulting, implementation, and  training services related to the use of open source solutions by specific domains, e.g. healthcare, finance, manufacturing.

Proprietary Software Model
In this model, a company offers a more closed, proprietary licensed version of a similar open source software solution. This protects them against some of the risks associated with developing products that use open source GPL licensed software.

CAUTION: Under an open source GPL licensing, if the open source software is linked to your company's proprietary software, the proprietary software also becomes open source. Consumers buy commercial friendly open source licensed software to avoid this potential problem.

Premium Software Model
In this model, a company sells premium commercial software add-on modules or applications in conjunction with the open source software product, often packaging both together, e.g. Jaspersoft.

Dual Licensing Model
This is a variation of the proprietary software business models just described. A company may release the code they own under both a standard commercial license, as well as an Open Source License. Using this approach, customers can be attracted to a no-cost and open-source edition, then later agree to acquire a more robust, multi-user commercial enterprise edition. 

Hybrid Model
There is a related, hybrid model in which a vendor forks a non-copyleft software project then adds closed-source additions to it and sells the resulting software. After a fixed time period, the company may release the patches or enhancements back upstream under the same open source license as the rest of the codebase.

Platform Integration Services
With the introduction of service-oriented architecture, many companies no longer buy software from one particular vendor. They build software using components from different vendors and integrate them to best meet their unique business needs. There are numerous risks and issues that need to be considered when mixing and matching open source with proprietary products.

Hardware Integration Model
In this model, hardware companies may bundle open source software into their product. The software is free, you just buy the box it runs in., e.g.  Android smartphones. This may allow the hardware company to significantly lower the cost of their products. 

Indirect Services & Accessories
Companies may choose to provide indirect services and accessories for open source systems. This may include providing news and information, selling books, marketing, training materials, hardware accessories, t-shirts, e.g. O'Reilly Associates, Open Health News.

Non-Profit Business Models
Many non-profit organizations are not interested in making huge profits from their  free and open source software (FOSS) solutions, but are interested in simply creating and distributing high quality, free software and solutions that will be of benefit to as many people as possible. However, they often need some level of funding to support their efforts. Many open source software projects are supported by a "sugar daddy", e.g. Firefox has Google; Eclipse has IBM; and VistA has the VA. Some establish foundations that require membership fees. Some pursue charitable grants or simply ask for donations to support their work. Sometimes the user community may come together and pool their resources to help develop a desired feature or functionality.

Independent Contractors/Developers
A growing number of programmers in the open source software community offer their services as independent contractors to develop, install, maintain, or enhance open source software for others.  You'll run across many of them on SourceForge, GitHub, or particular community web sites, e.g. Drupal, Wordpress. 

Public Domain Model
Governments or other non-governmental organizations may develop software internally or hire a contractor for custom in-house modifications to software, then release that code under an open-source license.

Defensive Business Model/Strategy
Some companies may choose to pursue an open source business strategy or model to gain access to innovative new ideas, software code, or to reduce software development costs and timeframes. It also allows them to take a portion of market share for services and support for popular open source solutions. It may also allow them to join a community and beak a monopolistic hold a company may have on a particular area, e.g. web browsers, server software, etc.

Finally, in putting together this feature article, I ran across over 80 other open source business models or strategies related to forming partnerships with other companies; creating franchised services and solutions, and much more. Many are simply a variation on the models described above. If you have found a truly new and unique business model that you're willing to share with us, please send us a short write up or description of the model.

Remember, a company doesn't have to use just one business model. They can mix-and-match models as they see fit, moving to a more profitable model as circumstances change.

The list of successful open source organizations offering high quality software products, publications, projects, and services  continues to grow. Let us know about other major open source business models that we may have missed.

Other Recommended Articles Open Source Business Models Open Source Business Models, Revisited  Open Source Case for Business  Five Models For Open Source Revenue  11 open source business models  Open Technology & Open Source Business Models  Business Models for Open Source  Business Models for Open Source Software * See Google search results for other recent news articles on Open Source & Business Models

Open Source: Just the facts, ma'am.

There are a lot of opinion pieces and blogs about the open source, open access, and open data marketplace, which is great – but most managers want to simply know what the facts are. Looking back over the past year, a number of surveys and reports have been issued by various organizations providing hard data about the growing 'open' movement. For example:

• Gartner has reported that on average, 29% of deployed code was open source, and that by 2015 at least 95% of mainstream IT organizations will leverage open source solutions within mission critical software deployments.  See Apple, Microsoft, VMware: Everyone's Building Open-Source Software
• The recent "2012 Linux Jobs Report" prepared by Dice and The Linux Foundation found that the need for open source programming language skills, like Python and Ruby, have hit all-time highs.  They report that there are nearly 2,000 job postings on any given day for personnel skilled in JBoss. Further, job postings for programmers with Android skills and experience are up 33 percent from a year ago. See The Latest on the 'Open Source' Health IT Jobs Market
• In a 2012 online survey of more than 21,000 physicians by Medscape, a healthcare news and information portal owned by WebMD, physicians were asked to rank their EHR systems with regards to ease of use, value and reliability. Topping the list were Amazing Charts, Practice Fusion, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) VistA 'open source' EHR system. See VistA Ranks at Top End of Doctor EHR Satisfaction Survey
• In another report, Gartner revealed that more than half of the organizations surveyed have adopted Open Source Software(OSS) as part of their IT strategy.  See Gartner Open Source Software Survey Reveals OSS Adoption Trends And Initiatives
• Findings from the recent Eclipse Community Survey found that the primary computer language used to develop open source software is Java; that Apache Tomcat continues to be the most popular application server, followed by JBOSS; and that Android and Apple iOS are the dominant mobile operating system targeted by open source developers. See Eclipse Survey 2012

For those wanting to see more statistics about Open Source, there's also a range of  interesting Infographic sites worth examining that provide charts and data on various aspects of the open source movement. For example:

• State of Open Source Adoption
• History of Open Source Software
• Evolution of Open Source
• State of the Open Source Cloud
• Open Text Books

Open Health News provides links to a wide range of other free reports, studies, white papers, and other publications related to open source and eHealth at http://www.openhealthnews.com/resources. 

Also check out the list of reports & studies on COSI 'Open' Health.  
 

Readers Choice: Most viewed 'Open Source' eHealth software

The global 'open source' software movement continues to grow and strengthen, especially in the field of healthcare. Based on the number of hits by readers of Open Health News (OHN) on links to 'open source' eHealth systems, the following are their top choices of interest: 

VistA  – Grabbing the top spot, major variants of this comprehensive 'open source' EHR system for hospitals & clinics include: VA VistA vxVistA OpenVistA WorldVistA RPMS 'Blue Button'

OpenEMR  ClearHealth   HEAL   CottageMed caBIG  HCUP BIRN Tools   Aurion Project

The next layer of top choices for 'open' eHealth systems contending for our readers interest include:

Apelon DTS Bika Lab Systems CAISIS CARE2X CHIT Epi Info

NEDSS/PHIN OpenCDMS OpenClinica Sahana Tolven Health Record 3D Slicer

* See links to more 'open source' health IT systems in the OHN Software Resources section, like OSCAR, RODS, Ushahidi, ClearCanvas, HuGENet, iPATH, HealthMap, iHRIS...

Which is your favorite 'open source' eHealth software solution? Do you have another 'open source' eHealth system you would like to recommend to our readers?