Open source ... network equipment: Yes or no?

At the office of Panorama Capital in San Francisco, more than two dozen engineers, venture capitalists and technology experts gathered around a hardware device they jointly created.

What wonder, you wonder? Please, that is the first open source router device in the world.

Then, Allan Leinwand, CEO of a start-up company called Vyatta, started plugging in the router. A programmer started downloading RED Hat Linux to his laptop through that black router box, and when the screen was successful, the whole room broke into cheering and now celebrating victory .

It has been several months since that lovely October afternoon and Vyatta's router is about to release its first test version. Expected, official products will be available in the market this summer.
The Vyatta router runs on two Intel chips, but is noticeably more than its software: XORP or an open, extensible router platform. This versatile open source application can handle data transfer for a large corporation, easy and delicious like controlling a home Wi-Fi network.

Potential killer

And that's the reason why this router becomes a potential killer of Cisco: The Vyatta router is only one-fifth the price of a typical middle-class product from well-known brands such as Cisco, therefore, Its appeal, no doubt, is enormous.

" Open source is really competing with commercial telecom operators. It will force these firms to improve their products, technologies and release methods today. Prices will also drop, of course ," said John. Todd, an open source telecommunications expert, said.

Of course, even if open source software has gained market share from Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems, it is hard to "revolt" in high-end networking equipment - which only runs on platforms. Cisco proprietary software or Juniper Networks.

While gradually shifting towards open source when buying operating systems (Linux), web servers (Apache) and databases (MySQL) to save budget, many IT managers have realized: Turns out the budget spend on network equipment is even more tricky: Router and bridge to route data, firewall devices to serve security and PBX to run office phone systems.

In fact, Vyatta is just one of many companies trying to attack this extremely lucrative, but almost self-contained, market segment. " Open source is being widely used, and over time, it will start to have a bigger impact on the telecommunications sector, " said Nortel Network's chief technology officer, Peter Carbone.

Overcoming Cisco

However, there has not been any bold and deliberate project like Vyatta's to gamble on this router. The idea came from the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, where expert Atanu Ghosh is studying the future of broadband. Ghosh knew that in order to change the router's software, he would first have to submit a draft to Cisco or other giants - a very cumbersome and cumbersome stage.

Because of that, Ghosh and his colleagues decided to write the software themselves, integrating more advanced modern technologies such as on-demand video or VoIP. This project immediately attracted Leinwand, a former employee of Cisco from the early days. "This is clearly the most delicious opportunity in the telecommunications industry I have ever met," Leinwand recalls.

With the advice of Ghosh, last April, Leinwand came up with the name Vyatta, Sanskrit means "Open". The company plans to focus on marketing open source routers to medium-sized businesses and branch offices of multinational corporations. This market segment is worth up to 4 billion USD and is currently under the absolute dominance of Cisco.

Of course, at this time the big telecom companies still have not felt the heat of competition. "Open source is not a threat in the network market, because inherently, the network has been based on open standards," a Cisco spokesman said. Juniper commented, " We can support any open source solution, provided they are based on industry standards ."

But if Vyatta's router can do exactly what it promised - it sells for just one-fifth of the competition - it will surely win a lot of customers. Even with many optimists, this could be a knock-out game.

Thien Y