Is Sun Preparing to Take on Cisco?
Published on 9 Mar 2009 · Filed in Musing · 282 words (estimated 2 minutes to read)A while back in Virtualization Short Take #25 I briefly mentioned Sun’s Crossbow network virtualization software, which brings new possibilities to the Solaris networking world. Not being a Solaris expert, it was hard for me at the time to really understand why Solaris fans were so excited about it; since then, though, I’ve come to understand that Crossbow brings to Solaris the same kind of full-blown virtual network interfaces and such that I use daily with VMware ESX. Now I’m beginning to understand why people are so thrilled!
In any case, an astute reader picked up on my mention of Crossbow and pointed me to this article by Jonathan Schwartz of Sun, and in particular this phrase:
You’re going to see an accelerating series of announcements over the coming year, from amplifying our open source storage offerings, to building out an equivalent portfolio of products in the networking space…
That seemingly innocuous mention was then coupled with this blog post and the result was this question: is Sun preparing to take on Cisco? Is Sun getting ready to try to use commodity hardware and open source software to penetrate the networking market in the same way that they are using commodity hardware and open source software to try to further penetrate the storage market with their open storage products (in particular, the 7000 series)?
It’s an interesting thought, to say the least. Going up against Cisco is a bold move, though, and I question Sun’s staying power in that sort of battle. Of course, with Cisco potentially distracted by the swirling rumors regarding the networking giant’s entry into the server market, now may be the best time to make this move.
Thoughts?