Dave Ward, Cisco, at Open Networking Summit 2014 with John Furrier and Stu Miniman @thecube #ONS2014 There were a lot of great interviews at #ONS2014, but the award for most insightful goes to Dave Ward, CTO of Engineering & Chief Architect at Cisco. Meeting with theCUBE hosts John Furrier and Stu Miniman, Ward discussed the software-defined networking (SDN) space, which is extremely exciting right now as the world seeks out modern data center architecture for agility and economic growth. The panel unanimously agreed that products and deployments are emerging for the modern data center, with software still at the center of the value proposition. Ward explained, "SDN is just a pillar of the networking architecture, network function virtualization is a pillar of that architecture, so is cloud, these are all the buzz words as long as we're going through the litany of all of them. The thing is, to build out a solution or a deployment all of those pillars have to come together. Being one who's helped bring OpenFlow out of gates 104 out of Stanford, I'm extremely happy that programmatic interfaces are here now for networking." There has been a long history of programmatic interfaces: OpenFlow, CORBA, GSMPs, etc. All of those have helped catalyze what is happening now with SDN. And we're starting to see 'real things,' too. "SDN is here now, we're beyond the hype. We are seeing products, we are seeing people deploy this. We're deploying with customers. In fact, we're deploying with dozens and dozens of customer our SDN solution. Even a big player like Cisco has fundamentally turned how they think about programmatic interfaces," said Ward. Innovation is happening up and down the stack, not only around the technology though. There are now new services and service offerings that can be deployed. Because of the jump in technology, new markets are being created that weren't fathomable 10 years ago. According to Ward, the core competencies are still driving the acceleration: faster service delivery, and easier to operate networks. "SDN is not just limited to the data center. It is a piece that allows programmatic interfaces not only physical kit, virtual kit, that's really really key. Being able to tie together what's going on in the data center to whats going on in the network and link customer to what they want out of the network really really quickly," said Ward. Cisco is in a unique position of strength as software-defined reformats the physical and digital web. How exactly does Cisco define Open Networking? With a large number of protocols, the open piece is SDO (Standard Development Organizations). Open means a lot of things to Ward and Cisco. Open means open standards, open means open source, and open means open interoperability between a large number of vendors. Furrier posed a great question about architectural decisions by Cisco and how Ward and his team factor in the force from the top (paid) and the open (bottom). Ward was extremely matter-of-fact in responding, "When building out this equipment it's always in the customers mind, what are they trying to solve?" The industry is throwing a wrench into the cog that is big players like Cisco. Virtualizing as much as the portfolio as possible: security, mobility, video, collaboration, VoIP and being able to orchestrate across all of it. Ward admitted that creating a product that combines servers, switches, storage, routing and solutions on top is a lot of work. So with all of this change brought on by mobility and the Internet of Everything, how does Cisco deal with the change of the edge of the network? More devices equal more data which equals more opportunity...right? And what is the next step in putting product and services around that new Internet of Everything edge of the network?