HP has quietly been making waves recently with their networking strategies. They recently showed off their technology around software defined networking (SDN) applications at Interop New York. Here’s a video:

It would seem that HP has been doing a lot of hard work on the back end with SDN. So why haven’t we heard about it?

Trumpet and Bugle

HP Networking hasn’t been in the news as much as Cisco and VMware as of late. When you consider that both of those companies are pushing agendas related to redefining the paradigm of networking around policy and virtualization their trumpeting of those agendas makes total sense. But even members of the League of Non-Aligned Vendors like Brocade are talking a lot about their SDN strategy with the Vyatta Controller and OpenStack integrations. Vendors have layers and layers of plans for the “new” networking. But HP has actually been doing it! Why haven’t we known until now?

HP has been content to play the role of the bugler to the trumpeters of the bigger organizations. Rather than talking over and over again about what they are planning on doing, HP waits until they’ve actually done it to talk about it. It’s a sound strategy. I love making everything work first and then discussing what you’ve done rather than spending week after week, month after month, talking about a plan that may or may not come to fruition.

The issue with HP is that they need to bugle a little more often to stay afloat in the space. Only making announcements won’t cut it. The breakneck pace of innovation and adoption is disrupting the ability of laggard developers to stay afloat. New technologies are being supplanted by upstarts. Docker is old news. Now we’re talking about SocketPlane and Rocket. You’d be forgiven if you haven’t been keeping up as a blogger or engineer. But if you’ve missed the boat as a vendor, you’re going to have a hard time treading water.

The Tijuana Brass

How can HP solve their problem? Technically, they need to keep doing what they’ve been doing all along. They are making good decisions and innovating around ideas like the HP SDN App Store. What they need to do it tell more people about it. Get the word out. Start some discussions around what you’re doing. Don’t be afraid to engage. The more you talk to people about your solutions, the more your name will come up in conversation. You need to be loud and on-key. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass weren’t popular right away. It took years of recording and playing before the mainstream “discovered” them and popularized their music.

HP Networking has spent considerable time building SDN infrastructure. The fact that their are OpenFlow images for a wide variety of their existing switch infrastructure is proof they are concerned about making everything fit together. Now it’s time to tell the story. With the impending divestiture of HP’s enterprise businesses from the consumer line, it will be far too easy to get lost in the shuffle of reorganization. They way to prevent that is to step out and make yourself known. Write blogs, record podcasts, and interact with the community. Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn a little.

Disclaimer

HP invited me to attend HP Discover Barcelona as their guest. They provided travel and lodging expenses during my time in Europe. They did not require any blog posts or consideration for this invitation, nor where they offered any on my part. The opinions and analysis expressed herein represents my thoughts alone.

HP has had a pretty good track record with SDN. Even if it’s not very well-known. HP has embraced OpenFlow on a good number of its Procurve switches. Given the age of these devices, there’s a good chance you can find them laying around in labs or in retired network closets to test with. But where is that going to lead in the long run?

HP Networking was kind enough to come to Interop New York and participate in a Tech Field Day roundtable. It had been a while since I talked to their team. I wanted to see how they were handling the battle being waged between OpenFlow proponents like NEC and Brocade, Cisco and their hardware focus, and VMware with NSX. Jacob Rapp and Chris Young (@NetManChris) stepped up to the plate to talk about SDN and the vision on HP.

They cover a lot of ground in here. Probably the most important piece to me is the SDN app store.

The press picked up on this quickly. HP has an interesting idea here. I should know. I mentioned it in passing in an article I wrote a month ago. The more I think about the app store model, the more I realize that many vendors are going to go down the road. Just not in the way HP is thinking.

HP wants to curate content for enterprises. They want to ensure that software works with their controller to be sure that there aren’t any hiccups in implementation. Given their apparent distaste for open source efforts, it’s safe to say that their efforts will only benefit HP customers. That’s not to say that those same programs won’t work on other controllers. So long as they operate according to the guidelines laid down by the Open Networking Foundation, all should be good.

Show Me The Money

Where’s the value then? That’s in positioning the apps in the store. Yes, you’re going to have some developers come to HP and want to simple apps to put in the store. Odds are better that you’re going to see more recognizable vendors coming to the HP SDN store. People are more likely to buy software from a name they recognize, like TippingPoint or F5. That means that those companies are going to want to have a prime spot in the store. HP is going to make something from hosting those folks.

The real revenue doesn’t come from an SMB buying a load balancer once. It comes from a company offering it as a service with a recurring fee. The vendor gets a revenue stream. HP would be wise to work out a recurring fee as well. It won’t be the juicy 30% cut that Apple enjoys from their walled garden, but anything would be great for the bottom line. Vendors win from additional sales. Customers win from having curated apps that work every time that are easy to purchase, install, and configure. HP wins because everyone comes to them.

Fragmentation As A Service

Now that HP has jumped on the idea of an enterprise-focused SDN app store, I wonder which company will be the next to offer one? I also worry that having multiple app stores won’t end up being cumbersome in the long run. Small developers won’t like submitting their app to four or five different vendor-affiliated stores. More likely they’ll resort to releasing code on their own rather than jump through hoops. That will eventually lead to support fragmentation. Fragmentation helps no one.

Tom’s Take

HP Networking did a great job showcasing what they’ve been doing in SDN. It was also nice to hear about their announcements the day before they broke wide to the press. I think HP is going to do well with OpenFlow on their devices. Integrating OpenFlow visibility into their management tools is also going to do wonders for people worried about keeping up with all the confusing things that SDN can do to a traditional network. The app store is a very intriguing concept that bears watching. We can only hope that it ends up being a well-respect entry in a long line of easing customers into the greater SDN world.

Tech Field Day Disclaimer

HP was a presenter at the Tech Field Day Interop Roundtable. In addition, they also provided the delegates a 1TB USB3 hard disk drive. They did not ask for any consideration in the writing of this review nor were they promised any. The conclusions and analysis contained in this post are mine and mine alone.