A provider of adaptive routing software that aims to transform how networking is processed this week enlisted some help from the channel. Both Arrow Electronics and Lanner Electronics have agreed to include the routing software developed by 128 Technology in customer premise equipment through which next-generation network services will be delivered.
This approach eliminates the need to employ a dedicated router to process network traffic, says Kevin Klett, vice president of product marketing and strategy for 128 Technology.
The offering developed by Lanner is the first in a series of customer premise equipment (CPE) that 128 Technology will build in collaboration with Arrow, says Klett.
“This is a meet in the channel model,” says Klett. “We’re a software company.”
Proponents of software-based networking technologies have been making a case for disaggregating network services from underlying hardware for years. As carriers such as AT&T and Verizon move to deliver next-generation 5G networking services, it’s clear most service providers are now embracing that model. Even Cisco has begun to disaggregate networking software and hardware.
At the same time, however, there’s still a need for a box that resides on the customer premise through which networking services are delivered. Lanner working with 128 Technology and Arrow is building a CPE through which all networking and Internet services are consolidated.
The result, says Klett, should be a significant reduction in the number of network overlays that need to be deployed and managed because the processing of network traffic is going to occur on standard industry servers or using commercial silicon. The need for dedicated ASICs to process networking traffic is essentially over, contends Klett.
This change to the way networking services are delivered has the potential to disrupt the way most solution providers go about delivering network services. Solution providers typically deliver a router or switch they program via a local command line interface (CLI). As networking becomes more driven by software, an opportunity to programmatically manage hundreds of instances of networking at scale presents itself. The challenge facing most solution providers today don’t have much in the way of programming skills.
Naturally, it will take the rest of this decade for this transition to play out. But at this point, it’s clear that software-defined networks (SDNs) are now more a matter of when rather than if.
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