Reflections from OpenDaylight Summit

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At our very first OpenDaylight Summit last week, the energy in the room was palpable as we announced the release of Hydrogen, the community’s first open source software to enable SDN. It was the culmination of ten months of work by the community who are all working toward the same goal. It hasn’t been an easy path or a straight one, but that shared vision has gotten us to this point. Even more than excitement for the release itself, the biggest takeaway for me was the amount of industry optimism for the project and for open source SDN. Like Jim Zemlin said, we are on the right side of history. And we are just getting started.

I was heartened to hear how many different use cases people had for testing Hydrogen. I also heard from users who want specific features and apps to be considered for subsequent releases. The event was the perfect time for the community and users to connect, listen and innovate together. The project is working on a way to formalize that feedback loop for end users.

Interoperability was also a key topic of conversation. We are starting to see vendors integrate OpenDaylight into their products (Cisco, IBM, Inocybe, Microsoft), giving users options of how to consume Hydrogen and, at the heart, making moves toward interoperability. Ericsson announced a lab for the OpenDaylight community for testing SDN apps. We heard loud and clear that people want to see proof-of-concepts. OpenDaylight will facilitate that in whatever way we can and I am open to ideas.

The list of things the community wants to accomplish in 2014 is long, but rising to the top are security, controller federation, and some more timely items like a Python OpenDaylight client and an SDN Simulator project. Help shape the future of networking through open source participation and by contributing to the free flow of ideas--voice your thoughts on the mailing lists or open TSC calls.

Above all, what I heard last week is that OpenDaylight is bringing users the hope of a better way to do networking. We have a ways to go but the road map is there. The community has a vision and a path but, most importantly, the right open source governance to do what’s needed to benefit the many versus one. If you have good code, good ideas or a willingness to learn--bring it! Your optimism and enthusiasm is what will keep this project moving forward.