Crescendo's Web Application Performance Blog

2 weeks ago I was at the Interop show in Las Vegas. The amazing conclusion from the show is that the networking world is about to be disrupted. I am still surprised by this conclusion mostly due to the fact that in the last few years, networking seems to have settled down to a steady state where things work reasonably well, people are comfortable running their networks and networks pretty much do what we expect them to do.

So why am I jumping to this conclusion? Let me explain.

The innovation pace in networking seems to have slowed in the last few years. The constant stream of new competing technologies that were part of the 90s and early 2000s has somewhat subsided. Ethernet and packet switching has overcome most technologies both in the internal networking world as well as on the WAN (remember ATM ?), it has dominated WiFi standards, and other (non-Ethernet) edge networking technologies like Bluetooth have become mainstream. Even in the datacenter, Ethernet seems to be poised to replace other fast connection technologies such as Fiber Channel.

The latest developments seem to be more incrementally driven then disruptive. Higher speeds of the same basic technology are introduced, improved reception technologies are added (802.11n standard of WiFI), and so forth. All of these developments are usually backwards compatible so rip-and-replace are not as common and deployments have become more gradual.

This year's show was abuzz with interesting announcements and initiatives. All of them were focused on Cloud Computing integrations, although no one seems to know how it will play out. Naturally, most of the talk around Cloud Computing revolved around the application layer, since the application people are the ones pushing Cloud. When confronted with the question of what it would mean for the network, they are at first astonished by the mere question and then react saying they don't really know but feel it will be an critical part to solve.

Let's look at what this means:

The premise of Cloud Computing is of providing flexible computing power which can be turned on or off according to needs and be able to flexibly run any type of workload. To work, it would require the network to respond and adapt on the fly to these changing needs. Such networks would have to play second fiddle to the applications which will mandate the needs. If it is to work at all, new networks would have to be simplified and highly automated, so things would just work when needed. Automation by definition will reduce the amount of work on the side of the networking people, creating friction between the networking groups and application groups. At the end of the day it changes the work of networking and will reduce the amount of people needed to run them.

On the networking vendor side, there are going to be fortunes created and lost based on who can address these Cloud issues better. Since we know it will be done but do not know what the exact winning formula will be, discovery will be based on trials and errors. It is thus not clear who the winners will be.

So stay tuned, we are heading into very interesting times in the network world. Times that will change the networking world as we know it...