On Wednesday, May 8 at 11 a.m. PST/2 p.m. EST/7 p.m. GMT, @eWEEKnews will host its fifth Tweetchat event. The topic will be “Defining, Deploying and Defending Software-Defined Networks.” It will be moderated by yours truly, who serves as eWEEK’s editor of features and analysis.
Some quick facts:
Topic: “Defining, Deploying and Defending Software-Defined Networks.”
Date/time: May 8, 2013 @11a.m. PST/2 p.m. EST/7 p.m. GMT
Hosted by: @eWeekNews
Moderator: Chris Preimesberger: @editingwhiz
Tweetchat handle: Use #eWeekChat to follow/participate in the chat; or
Chatroom link: http://tweetchat.com/room/eweekchat
Software-defined networking, along with big data, the consumerization of enterprise IT and the increasing influence of cloud computing, is now officially one of the chief trends in the IT world. It’s all about new intelligence inside routers, controllers, and switches and the automation of how and where—and how fast—data flows from point to point.
In a recent report published in eWEEK, IDC analysts said SDN hardware/software/service revenues driven by sales to enterprises and cloud service providers will reach $360 million in 2013, and will balloon to $3.7 billion by 2016. Those numbers include sales of everything SDN-related, from the associated network infrastructure and applications to control plane solutions and professional services.
Established networking vendors such as Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Juniper Networks and Extreme Networks are deeply into the SDN trend, and a host of startups are bringing their solutions to market. At the same time, there has been some consolidation in the industry as larger players—including some with little or no presence in the data center networking space—have bought smaller vendors to augment their SDN capabilities. Those include Big Switch Networks, Adara and Pica8.
For example, VMware last year spent $1.26 billion for SDN startup Nicira, and a week later, Oracle bought Xsigo. In November, Brocade bolstered its SDN expertise by acquiring SDN startup Vyatta.
Talking points in next Wednesday’s eWEEKchat will include how your company is moving, or planning to move, to an SDN fabric; what network pain points SDN solves; and why all this automation is really the future of the industry.
For a bit of background, here’s how a Tweetchat works:
Who: All those interested in the topic who also have a Twitter ID.
What: A Tweetchat is an online conversation held at a prearranged time following a specific hashtag. In eWEEK’s case, we will be using #eWeekChat for all or most of our Tweetchats. Chatroom link: http://tweetchat.com/room/eweekchat
When: Wednesday, May 8 at 11 a.m. Pacific Standard Time/2 p.m. EST/7 p.m. GMT.
Where: The chat can be followed on Twitter using the hashtag #eWeekChat. A link to the recap (so you can see a record of what everybody Tweeted) will be posted on this blog the following Friday, May 10.
Why: The whole idea is to facilitate additional industry dialogue and provide a forum for questions, idea sharing and problem solving. We also want your input on what you’d like to discuss during future chats, so please leave a comment on this post or tweet @eweeknews with topic ideas.
Participants will be able to ask questions of eWEEK staff members and special guests or simply add their thoughts to the conversation. The only restrictions are that we stay on topic and that you say what you need to say succinctly (140 characters).
You may not have participated in a Tweetchat previously. They generally move pretty fast, but you can learn a lot. We’ll also post a record of all the comments so that you can refer to it afterward. Here’s the Storify page containing all of our previous eWEEKChat compilations.
Please note that to maintain a semblance of order, please prefix your question or comment with the number of the question we are currently discussing. As an example, the moderator may post: “Q1: Does your company plan to move to a data center fabric that includes SDN within the next 12 to 24 months?”
To which you might answer: “A1: Yes, we do, and our in-house fashion consultants are also quite busy choosing the fabrics.” Or you might not answer that way.
eWEEK’s first four Tweetchats all were both resounding successes, with an average of six to seven Tweets per minute during each 60-minute time frame. If you do the math, that’s about 350 tweets in the single hour. The action is fast, but lots of good information invariably is contributed.
A Tweetchat is a venue that is easy to use on any type of device, too. By the way, did you know that eWEEK is the only mainstream IT trade publication that has specific apps for Android and iOS devices?
Hope to connect with you May 8, and use your collaboration network to tell your friends. Let’s have fun with this.
eWEEK Senior Editor Jeff Burt contributed to this story.