Peer2Politics

One would have to have been living under a rock to not have seen the “ice bucket challenge”. A few months back, people were dumping cold water on their heads in the name of charity. However, just as quickly as that fad showed up, it was gone, as all fads go. The “open networking” movement is getting a lot of attention as well, but in this case, I don’t think it’s a fad, and will have a significant impact on how businesses operate in the future. While the buckets of cold water have disappeared, the need for a revolution in networking continues and businesses are starting to hold their incumbent providers like Cisco Systems CSCO +1.2%, Juniper Networks JNPR +2.1% Alcatel-Lucent , Hewlett-Packard HPQ +0.67% and Brocade Communications Systems BRCD +0.54% more accountable to their networking needs, or face an icy outcome as businesses could shift their purchasing elsewhere.  User groups like ONUG (Open Networking User Group) are taking a leadership role in transforming the networking industry to a more open approach, and I’d like to share my thoughts on it. Let me provide some background first.