Verizon: Should a "Standard SDN" be Also Open?

A recent article by Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading, quotes Chris Emmons [pictured]. Director, Network Planning, Corporate Network & Technology, Verizon from a presentation made at Light Reading Carrier SDN Networks - about "Having a standard version of SDN is "a prerequisite" to deployment because Verizon needs to be sure that whatever it deploys can interoperate not only with other pieces of its network but also future networks".

Verizon, with "its key technology partners" - Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Juniper Networks and Nokia Networks" announced recently its plan to transform its netwrok to SDN control (here).

Mr. Emmons agreed with Heavy Reading's analyst Sterling Perrin [pictured] that "there are almost too many different deployment options and evolving standards today for Carrier SDN. So while Verizon wants to move forward as quickly as possible with the strategy announced in April, there are still key issues to resolve .. Even if we can't get to commodity hardware, however, standards are important for interoperability and so we can present APIs so the network can be programmable". 

Indeed, Verizon announcement mentioned that "to enable its network vision, Verizon and its technology vendors have co-authored a comprehensive SDN network architecture document". However, the document is nowhere to be found on Verizon's site. When I contacted Verizon's media relations, The answer I got was "At this time the SDN network architecture document is not available to the public. It’s only available to those technology vendors we are working with on SDN".

    

See "Verizon: Telecom Needs to Solve SDN Problem" -here.