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ONF Board Members and Executive Director to Accelerate Worldwide Awareness of SDN

ONF Representatives to Speak at Multiple Events in Asia and Europe Throughout October

PALO ALTO, Calif., October 10, 2012 – The Open Networking Foundation (ONF), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Software-Defined Networking (SDN), is expanding the awareness of SDN and OpenFlow® through its participation at four industry-leading October conferences in Tokyo, Amsterdam, London, and Darmstadt led by its Board members, executive director, and other prominent players.


These ONF representatives will share their thoughts on the opportunities, developments, and real-world deployments of one of the industry’s most innovative and disruptive technologies.

Since its inception a year ago, ONF and its member companies have been dedicated to making OpenFlow-based SDN the new norm for networks. Its revolutionary approach to networking has impacted various markets including hyperscale data centers, enterprise data centers, public and private cloud service providers, telecom networks, campus networks, circuit-switched networks, and optical networks. Throughout the month of October, the Foundation and its member companies will drive the awareness of the benefits SDN and OpenFlow® in leading conferences, with exceptional prominence of its top brass.

  • ONF and Layer123 will co-host the SDN & OpenFlow® World Congress an event dedicated to accelerating the SDN and OpenFlow® movement and to building its community in Europe. The event will take place on October 22-24, 2012 at the Maritim Konferenzhotel in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt Airport, Germany, and is expected to draw significant participation from the telecom-provider and financial-services sectors. During a pre-congress workshop on October 22, members and representatives of ONF will introduce SDN and OpenFlow® and provide educational sessions on OpenFlow-based SDNs. The workshop will be led by Dan Pitt, executive director of ONF, and will feature additional speakers from ONF member companies. The two-day conference will hold multiple sessions and panel discussions from 14 member companies and will feature at least five ONF board members. This will be ONF’s premier conference showcase in Europe this year and includes the largest participation by its industrial Board members ever.
  • Executive Director Dan Pitt will give a keynote presentation at Japan’s leading IT conference, Nikkei IT Pro Expo. The event will be held October 10-12, 2012 at Tokyo’s International Exhibition Center, Big Sight. With more than 600 people expected to attend his talk, Pitt will discuss the why, what, and who of ONF and of SDN and OpenFlow.
  • Multiple member companies will present on behalf of the Foundation at the 12th annual Broadband World Forum, the world's largest broadband event at the RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre in Amsterdam. ONF member companies and Board members will deliver keynote presentations, educational sessions, and SDN and OpenFlow® tutorials.
  • An ONF member company representative will speak at IP Expo, an event dedicated to IT infrastructure. The event will take place on October 17-18, 2012 at Earls Court 2 in London. The ONF representative will provide an introduction to ONF and OpenFlow, and share thoughts on the future of networking.

“Software Defined Networking and OpenFlow® are constantly evolving and offering new possibilities and benefits for network users,” said Dan Pitt, executive director of ONF. “The Foundation is committed to advancing the technology and leading the transition to next generation networking. An important component of our work is sharing our experience and insights with audiences worldwide to accelerate their understanding, and the willingness of our Board members to speak shows the amazing commitment to our message by these industry pioneers. We look forward to furthering the discussion on SDN in these regions and at these industry-leading events. We anticipate both sharing our thoughts and hearing perspectives from users who have experience deploying the networking industry’s most innovative technology.”

About ONF

Launched in 2011 by Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo!, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a growing nonprofit organization with more than 70 members whose mission is to advance the commercialization and use of SDN and OpenFlow, and collaboratively bring to market standards and solutions. ONF will accelerate the delivery and use of SDN and OpenFlow® technologies and standards while fostering a vibrant market of products, services, applications, customers, and users.