Networking has become “rigid”. Yes, I know it’s almost absurd to attribute inflexibility or rigidity to networking, but we are in a compute innovation cycle that’s driving a fundamental change in networking, which screams out the need for more flexibility and configuration automation. The well understood problem is that when a virtualized machine is moved from one physical machine to another, the network, load balancers, firewalls/IPS, broadcast domains, etc., have to be reconfigured. There is no automation in place, meaning that the network is not flexible or agile enough to make the changes required. Networking companies such as Force10 Networks are driving an open approach to automation to enable network changes. I talk with Steve Garrison, Vice President, Marketing for Force10 Networks about its’ “Open Automation” approach to networking.
