Dan Pitt returns from Ireland, where he discussed the global SDN movement and the primacy of software in a country known for its software acumen.
It’s been another travel-filled month for many ONF representatives, me included. But I would be hard pressed to name a more successful and satisfying event than Open Tech Ireland: An SDN Gathering. The clear skies illuminating beautiful landscapes of Ireland were as breathtaking as they were rare, and Dublin (the “Silicon Valley of Europe”) was the perfect setting for the one-day, ONF co-hosted event. We welcomed a full house of attendees for terrific presentations, lots of networking, constant conversation, and a tangible sense of the budding SDN community in Ireland.
Other ONF participants included Board of Directors alternate from Deutsche Telekom Peter Feil and ONF Research Associate Sandra Scott-Hayward from Queen’s University in Belfast, among many other recognizable names from around the world. Bethany Mayer of HP gave a powerful keynote address, spent the afternoon with us, and then headed downtown to be recognized at an event celebrating the top 100 women in STEM. John Kenevey, founder of the Open Compute Project at Facebook, offered a keen perspective on the open technology movement in a genuine Irish brogue, as did John Healy of Intel in Phoenix, whom you might have seen at the Open Networking Summit. Especially exciting were the speakers from Irish companies I had not heard of before, already innovating in well-targeted niches of the SDN opportunity space.
While at the event, I had a great conversation with John Kennedy of Silicon Republic about standardization, SDN adoption, and networking as the last frontier of programmability and automation. While it can be challenging to pinpoint exactly why networking suddenly took this vector, a variety of factors (addressed during the interview) combined with the rising frustration among network operators have kick started this networking revolution, and it’s exciting to watch the movement take hold worldwide. You can watch the Silicon Republic video interview here.
Now that Open Tech Ireland has wrapped up, we are surveying event participants to determine the next steps in building and binding this community, starting this fall. Even if you were not there, you are welcome to join the ongoing movement – or gathering – of SDN in Ireland. It’s a perfect fit.
- Dan Pitt, Executive Director
