PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Open Networking Foundation (ONF), a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the adoption of open Software-Defined Networking (SDN), has grown its Asia-Pacific (APAC) membership – from countries such as China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan – to 26 companies. Since July, ONF has added seven new APAC member companies and is supporting its increased presence in the region with the announcement of five new industry education events in December. With the growth of membership in the region this past year, ONF also appointed Daisuke Saso as the director of ONF in Japan.
“ONF has welcomed more than 120 member companies worldwide, and we have been excited to see increased participation in from the APAC region in particular this year,” said Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation. “We’ve embraced companies from a variety of user segments including cloud computing, e-commerce, and telecommunications as well as vendors. Growth in the region follows our recent announcement of the Beijing Internet Institute (BII) as the first international certified conformance testing lab in Asia, and we expect to see a continued increase in APAC involvement as we build out our capabilities.”
In the second half of the year, ONF welcomed Alibaba Group, a company that has developed leading businesses in consumer e-commerce, online payment, business-to-business marketplaces, and cloud computing, to the membership roster. Also new to the ONF is member company Fiberhome Technologies, a product and solutions provider in the field of information and telecommunications. In addition, ONF forged a strategic collaboration with the China SDN Commission (ChinaSDN), a consortium of academia, industry, and government dedicated to the development of SDN technologies, to increase deployment and commercialization of SDN and the OpenFlow protocol in the country.
Continuing membership momentum in Asia, ONF welcomed two companies from India: Tata Communications, a leading provider of new world communications; and Wipro Limited, a global information technology, consulting, and outsourcing company. ONF also greeted three Taiwan-based companies: EstiNet, a developer of SDN products and solutions; Institute for Information Industry (III), a technology center of excellence, jointly sponsored by the Taiwanese government and prominent private enterprises, for the purpose of strengthening the developments of the information industry in Taiwan; and MediaTek, a fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions.
“Open SDN is becoming an increasingly important topic in Asia for both vendors and end-user organizations alike,” said Daisuke Saso, director of ONF Japan. “As the benefits of SDN come into focus here, ONF is increasing its participation in industry events – the volume of which only further validates increased regional interest in the space.”
ONF is continuing the Foundation’s industry education in APAC through speaking and networking events discussing both the ONF’s achievements to date and general advancements in open SDN. The following are events where ONF representatives will be speaking in December:
-
International Mobile Internet Conference (Beijing) - Dec.3-4, 2013
Dan Pitt will attend, participate in various networking events and meetings, and speak about SDN and carrier-grade IP service. -
SDN & NFV Asia 2013 (Singapore) – Dec. 3-5, 2013
James Sun, president and CEO of Centec Networks, will provide a full update on OpenFlow development on Thursday, Dec. 5, at 9:10 a.m. SGT. -
International SDN Symposium Taiwan (Taipei) - Dec. 9, 2013
Dan Pitt and James Liao, CEO and co-founder of Pica8, will speak on multiple panels, addressing topics such as SDN global trends and how to migrate to SDN. -
Open & Virtual Networking Conference 2013 (Seoul) - Dec. 11, 2013
The event, presented by OpenFlow Korea and ONF, will mark ONF’s first co-hosted event on the Korean peninsula. -
SDN Japan at Okinawa Open Days (Okinawa) - Dec. 12-13, 2013
Dan Pitt will attend both OpenStack Japan and SDN Japan and will speak at the latter during the two events in the open cloud and emerging technology field. He will participate in discussions on topics that include the expectations of SDN and will visit the new Okinawa Open Laboratory.
About ONF
Launched in 2011 by Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo!, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a growing nonprofit organization with more than 100 members whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of open SDN. ONF promotes open SDN and OpenFlow technologies and standards while fostering a vibrant market of products, services, applications, customers, and users. For further details visit the ONF website at: http://www.opennetworking.org.