1. Opensig ‘99

2.  What are Programmable Networks?  What are customers looking for from programmable networks?  Why should vendors provide programmable networks?  Where will programmable networks be deployed?  What are some of the roadblocks to programmable networks? Agenda

3. What are Programmable Networks  A network in which it’s easy for an independent party to change the behaviour of the equipment 4Easy means that there are well- defined APIs that don’t change on each software release  Using expect to program the Cisco CLI is NOT easy 4Independent party is either customer or independent software vendor 4Behaviour is relative to usual operation of equipment

4. Customer Requirements  Service Providers 4Want to be able to create their own control environment 4Don’t want to be tied to delivery of features by vendors 4Want to be able to distinguish themselves from competition  Application Vendors 4Want their software to run on all brands of networking equipment 4Want to sell software independent of networking vendor

5. What’s in it for a vendor?  Programmable networks lead to horizontilisation of networking industry (c.f. PC companies) 4Market leaders are not naturally disposed to horizontalisation! 4Second tier vendors are generally in favour since it opens up market  Market leadership will be established in control plane 4Are we any better off (c.f. PC industry)?

6. Programmable Networks Status  Lots of APIs proposed and in development: 4GSMP, COPS, CORBA, XML, MGCP, Megaco, etc.  No widespread deployment in real networks  First real deployment will be MGCP 4Call control software already centralised 4Need way to control distributed media gateways 4IN already established

7. Predictions for Programmable Networks  In order of likelihood: 4MGCP/Megaco will enable call control vendors to control media gateways 4XML will enable application vendors to build more functional service creation applications 4GSMP will allow market leaders to control other vendors’ equipment and thus establish control plane dominance àDo you really want this?

8. Roadblocks  Network management is almost always forgotten  Failure models are more complex  Typical network devices are not simply switches or routers 4Have multi-service interfaces (e.g. voice/TDM) 4Hard to model generically  Vendors need to be presented with compelling business case