The surge of interest in Software-Defined Networking continues unabated, with European companies contributing more than half the recent growth in Open Networking Foundation (ONF) membership. The ONF, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Software-Defined Networking (SDN), added more than a dozen new European members in the second quarter – including: ADVA Optical Networking, Alcatel-Lucent, Argela Software (an arm of Turk Telekom), Colt, France Telecom-Orange, Luxoft, and Telecom Italia.

“European companies are strong supporters of standards, and with OpenFlow, ONF is offering a truly standard approach to the fast-evolving world of Software-Defined Networking,” noted Dan Pitt, ONF’s executive director. “Another factor in our European Growth, is that SDN enables centralized control of traffic routing – the first reliable solution to the problems of data border control.”

European companies need to abide by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines on the protection of privacy and transborder flow of personal data, but the nature of IP transmission makes it difficult to ensure how data is routed, and whether data packets might be transmitted via other countries before reaching their destination. The OpenFlow standard, when coupled with straightforward, direct programming of network policy makes it possible for the first time to ensure that sensitive data stays within national borders – and that is just one example of its potential for shaping traffic flow to meet specific business or security needs.

“The development of the OpenFlow standard represents a new evolution in policy-based orchestration for communication networks, and we are excited to join the rapidly growing Open Networking Foundation. We look forward to becoming a leading contributor to the development of this technology, and anticipate a wave of innovative applications and services in our customer base,” said Doru Mardare, Managing Director Telecom Solutions at Luxoft. “Luxoft brings a unique combination of embedded software engineering services, test automation frameworks, and agile application development to the ONF community, so we look forward to contributing to the implementation of a wide range of revolutionary enterprise projects.”

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 over 70 members whose goal is to rethink networking and quickly and collaboratively bring to market standards and solutions. ONF will accelerate the delivery and use of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technologies and standards, while fostering a vibrant market of products, services, applications, customers, and users.