Cisco's Rumored Quasi-Proprietary SDN Strategy Irks Some, Surprises Few

Cisco Systems' hint that it may introduce software-defined networking (SDN) technology that would not be based on the OpenFlow protocol prompted complaints from competing networking vendors and the OpenFlow community that Cisco was making another vendor lock-in play by offering proprietary technology, rather than standards-based products. Industry analysts say it's to be expected that Cisco would go the proprietary route as a way to preserve its industry-leading market share, and rival vendors are pushing open standards because that's the only way they can eat into Cisco's share.

Cisco hinted that it would go the proprietary route during its Cisco Live event in London Feb. 2. According to a report from the event, a Cisco executive was quoted as saying, "At this point we don't think [OpenFlow is] production ready."

Cisco replied to interview requests saying, "We have nothing to announce on SDN at this time."

That news from Cisco Live prompted a reaction from HP, which, at a news conference that same day in Cupertino, Calif., announced that it was releasing a free download of OpenFlow to enable customers to add SDN capabilities to 16 different networking gear product lines.

"It is at the heart of a philosophy at HP that we remain open with open standards so that we can be interoperable with the other networking vendors in the industry," says Bethany Mayer, senior VP and general manager of the HP Networking business. "If [Cisco has] decided to go the proprietary route, frankly, that's bad for the customers."

But two industry analysts say they were not surprised Cisco would pursue a proprietary SDN strategy because that is the right strategy for Cisco.

"Nobody else could pull that off, and for them that's the right strategy. That's how they maintain the share that they have," says Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research.

Cisco's market share ranges from between two-thirds and three-quarters, depending on the specific product segment. For instance, the company says it holds a 76% share in the emerging market for 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches.

The one sure way to protect that market share is to offer better products than do competitors, says Kerravala, adding that Cisco has a record of introducing innovations that go beyond established standards and even helps set them. Examples include the Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) alternative to the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony, and Cisco's proprietary Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+) technology.

"Cisco had a PoE product years ahead of competitors who were all waiting for the standard to be set," he says.

It's not uncommon for technology companies to develop products based on industry standards and, in parallel, develop proprietary products, or for standards-setting bodies to each set separate standards, states Jon Oltsik, a principal analyst at the research firm Enterprise Strategy Group. Vendors can come out with products that support a standard like OpenFlow, but they can also "brace and extend" the standard, he explains, by adding APIs and other features unique to them. Also, Cisco had developed one standard for virtual switching technology while other vendors built to another standard. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ended up certifying them both, he says.

"Cisco may decide that rather than wait around for a consortium to push through standards and deliberate on the next version ... they may just decide that it's in the company's best interest to go ahead and do that on a proprietary basis," says Oltsik.

But standards-setting consortia or groups exist so that customers have a choice of vendors whose products are based on a protocol that is tested and proven, counters Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation, which is promoting the OpenFlow protocol.

"The end customers we talked to ... view 'proprietary standards' as an oxymoron," he says, adding that while there are other potential alternative protocols to OpenFlow for SDN, they fall short.

"OpenFlow is an essential component. There are alternatives that people are talking about to do SDN and some, of course, would be proprietary and others are based on other standards," Pitt says. "But they're not designed for [SDN]. We don't think they're as well-suited [as OpenFlow]."While the ONF decision-making process is driven by end users--that is, companies that want to deploy SDN on their networks--its membership does include networking vendors, including HP, Cisco and Brocade Networks.

Brocade, like HP, supports open standards for SDN.

"We see open standards as one of the ways that our customers can really get the simplification in their network and the agility of the network to really meet their business requirements," says Daniel Williams, director of product marketing for service provider and application delivery products at Brocade.

But there's an obvious business reason why vendors push standards-based technology, notes ZK Research's Kerravala. If Cisco has proprietary networking equipment installed at customer locations, competitors such as HP can't go in and sell them HP as an alternative. If it's an industry-standard product, they can make a sale.

"HP's desire is to be very self-serving so they can talk about industry standards, but, ultimately, if it doesn't go that way, they will struggle to gain the share that they want," he says.

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