IBM, NEC enter OpenFlow partnership

The Register reports.

After a decade-long hiatus, IBM jumped back in the network-equipment business in September 2010 with its $400 million acquisition of Blade Network Technologies, which made both blade and rack switches.

According to IT World Canada, IBM's contribution is the OpenFlow-enabled 10/40GbE RackSwitch G8264 top of rack switch, which will be married with NEC's ProgrammableFlow network controller.

The partners say the solution enables a network administrator to easily configure and manage virtual networks on a “per-flow” basis, creating or deleting multiple independent virtual networks and related policies without having to deal with the underlying physical network and protocols.

“Enterprises around the world are showing high interest in using OpenFlow to decrease cost and complexity and accelerate innovation, while increasing security, stability and availability of cloud and other network-enabled services,” Computer Technology Review quotes Open Networking Foundation executive director Dan Pitt as saying.

“By fundamentally rethinking the way we approach networking, OpenFlow industry innovators, led by the members of the Open Networking Foundation, are propelling networking into the realms of computing and virtualisation, enabling the development and delivery of new architectures, standards, software, applications and services that bring real value to users.”