Lee Doyle of Doyle Research at theCube, Oracle OpenWorld 2012

Telecommunications analyst Lee Doyle stopped by theCube at this week’s Oracle OpenWorld for a chat with SiliconAngle founder John Furrier and Wikibon co-founder Dave Vellante, to talk about the company and its plans as far as software-defined networking goes (full video below).

Doyle agrees with the industry consensus that SDN is big, but he is not content with the definition of the architecture – the separation of software from hardware. According to him a more realistic way of putting it would be that SDN enables an open ecosystem around the network, which makes it something more than just static plumping.

Doyle’s observation from the event is that Oracle is stepping up its network play as a part of a broader agenda to become the next HP: a one-stop-shop for the entire stack. Networking is a vital component of the data center, and the database giant will have to establish a more solid presence in this market before moving on to bigger and better things.

The analyst says that Oracle could take several different routes towards realizing a foothold in the networking space. They could expand via acquisitions, as VMware did with the acquisition of Nciria, go through the channel, or become more invested in the open-source community around OpenFlow, the SDN standard.  At the same time, Doyle is also paying attention to the competition.

Here’s how he sees the emerging players:  the startups and VMware with Nicira’s assets, the traditional networking players such as Cisco and Juniper, and vendors like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and perhaps even Oracle, that regard networking as a mere component of their broader cloud strategy.

Doyle says that from the user point of view, taking the approach of the latter companies is the best course of action. Organizations need their networks to accommodate their shift to the cloud, and that requires identifying the proper tools for the job. Right now, SDN architectures offer the best solution.

See Doyle’s entire segment in the video below: