PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 1 — Big Switch Networks, the leading platform-independent Software-Defined Networking (SDN) vendor, announced the appointment of Rob Sherwood as the chair of the Open Networking Foundation’s (ONF) new Architecture & Framework Working Group (ArchWG). The ONF ArchWG will map out the scope of SDN in terms of architecture and framework for OpenFlow and other components. Rob’s appointment reinforces Big Switch Networks’ technical leadership in SDN, and underscores the joint commitment between Big Switch Networks, the ONF, and its member companies to deliver open, standards-based implementations of SDN and OpenFlow.

The ONF ArchWG is charged with defining and scoping the ONF's efforts around all aspects of SDN including terminology, motivations, use-cases, interfaces, and APIs along with their relation to the work of other standards bodies. The Northbound API (NBAPI) activity, starting with a comprehensive analysis of requirements and currently available solutions including data models, is an important component of the ArchWG and reflects a naturally high interest in the critical linking of an OpenFlow substrate with a rich, programmable control and services environment above. A new, focused activity in the ArchWG on Carrier Requirements will assure a strong voice from the service-provider community in the articulation of architectural elements and frameworks. As chair, Rob will be charged with leading all technical discussions, managing one of the ONF’s most strategic working groups, under the direction of the Board of Directors.

“The efforts of the Architecture and Framework Working Group are of central importance to all of ONF’s work and to everyone interested in SDN,” said Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation. “This working group will help us advance the adoption of SDN and the OpenFlow protocol, and the deep SDN expertise possessed by active ONF members will lead the industry to rapidly utilize the OpenFlow framework for implementation on hardware forwarding, hypervisor, and applications targets as well as the all-important provision of valuable services built on the OpenFlow foundation.”

Rob Sherwood is Principal Architect at Big Switch Networks, where he developed and evangelized the emerging OpenFlow standard and network virtualization. He has been heavily involved in the standards development and evolution since OpenFlow 0.82 and was most recently vice-chair for the ONF Testing & Interoperability Working Group; he has also been recognized twice as an ONF “Outstanding Technical Contributor.” Rob prototyped the first OpenFlow-based network hypervisor, the “FlowVisor”, allowing production and experimental traffic to safely co-exist on the same physical network. Prior to that he was involved in various standards efforts, including the Peer-to-Peer IRTF group, and spent 15 years in networking as an administrator, researcher, and programmer. Rob is a frequent speaker on OpenFlow and open standards and recently presented at the Open Network Summit, NANOG, and numerous customer and partner events. He earned a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Dan Talayco, another Member of the Technical Staff at Big Switch Networks, serves as vice-chair of the ONF’s Hybrid Programmable Forwarding Plane Working Group and was recognized as the “Unsung SDN Hero” by SDNCentral for his contributions to advance SDN.

“The Architecture Working Group is the ONF's effort to take stock of all the various moving pieces that fall under the very broad umbrella of 'SDN' and group them together under a coherent framework and vocabulary. We believe this is the most important work within the ONF at this time and believe that under Rob’s technical leadership the ONF will quickly accelerate delivery of vendor-independent OpenFlow and SDN products and services,” said Guido Appenzeller, CEO and co-founder of Big Switch Networks.

About Big Switch Networks

Big Switch Networks is the leading platform-independent Software-Defined Networking (SDN) vendor. The company's highly scalable Open SDN^TM architecture leverages industry standards and open APIs that enable customers to deploy dynamic and flexible networking applications, including data center network virtualization. Big Switch Networks is backed by the largest SDN ecosystem of OpenFlow applications and physical and hypervisor switches. The company’s commercial controller, network virtualization, and applications, which accelerate delivery of cloud services, are in customer trials today. Big Switch Networks was founded in 2010 by Guido Appenzeller and Kyle Forster. For more information, visit: http://www.bigswitch.com

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Source: Big Switch Networks