Customer-Centric Strategies Require Business-Centric Network Hardware

"Don't get too attached to your specialized network hardware — you're not going to need it in the future," said Steve Riley, chief technology officer of Riverbed Technology, during his speech at Interop 2013. He is another voice from the chorus that's saying that white box and bare metal with open software will be the future of network infrastructures. This may be true within web service provider data centers; it couldn't be further from reality within the enterprise data center or the business network edge. A white-box or bare-metal switch are other hardware options in a new world where networking solutions will be chosen on how well they serve their customer, not by the network's cost, openness, or programmability. This report helps infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals understand the fragmentation of the networking industry and the rise of more specialized networking equipment centered on business functions and customer engagements. This report was originally published on October 2, 2014. Forrester updated the graphics with new vendors and nuanced networking language.