Please note that JavaScript and style sheet are used in this website,
Due to unadaptability of the style sheet with the browser used in your computer, pages may not look as original.
Even in such a case, however, the contents can be used safely.

Site menu starts here.

Skip site menu.

End of site menu.

Displaying present location in the site.

Main content starts here.

Research & Development

Innovation: OpenFlow/SDN

The Future is Open

By writing applications to run on ProgrammableFlow® networks, it is possible to create networks which will optimize the enterprise’s investment in the technology. Iwata looks forward to a day when programs running on an open architecture network provide the operators with a system capable of discovering its own capacity, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses, and using intelligence-based programs to work out optimal routes for the traffic flowing through it.

Such an ultimate intelligent network could use centralized control to automate many network lifecycle management functions: design; provisioning; operation and failover recovery; monitoring; and optimization of networking routing control. NEC is helping to develop such networks, by working with a wide variety of global partners, and releasing into the public domain some enhancements of the OpenFlow standard.

Though Iwata sees data centers providing co-hosting services as the current market for NEC’s ProgrammableFlow®, future users will be enterprise-level data centers, and communications carriers. He is sure that the latter will see benefits from the savings and advantages to be realized from the new technology.

As one example of such benefits, a disaster or any other major event may spike an increase in voice and SMS traffic and a possible overload of the system as callers reassure each other of their safety and keep in contact with each other. Using ProgrammableFlow® networking, a carrier’s resources and bandwidth could be diverted dynamically, away from media provision services, and into the voice/texting services, which then have sufficient capacity to handle the increased demands.

“Although carriers are traditionally understandably cautious when adopting new ideas,” he says, “some are already in the evaluation and test phases. Naturally, the design of the OpenFlow controller allows control of the legacy network until the whole installation moves to the OpenFlow platform, thereby consolidating the network control in one appliance.”

Hiroyuki Watanabe
General Manager
Enterprise Solutions Operations Unit

Watanabe explains, “ProgrammableFlow® solves so many problems, some of which our customers are unaware of. We’re listening to them, and based on their needs, we’re using ProgrammableFlow® to develop and provide solutions for them that exceed their expectations.” ProgrammableFlow® can meet these demands to provide solutions, and thanks to the open architecture, also meet future, as yet unknown, needs.