As software-driven networking takes off around the world, OpenDaylight is deploying ambassadors to introduce the project to different countries. Masashi Kudo, CTO of the SDN Group at the NEC Corp., is acting as an ambassador in Japan.

“[The] Ambassador is taking the role to promote OpenDaylight, introduce OpenDaylight technology, and grow [the] OpenDaylight community.” So far, Kudo’s been pleased with the progress. “The first meetup was held in January, and at that time more than 50 people gathered … And the second one was in June … More than 70 people gathered. So many Japanese people are interested in OpenDaylight. They are enthusiastic about OpenDaylight technology and this community.”

Open source inevitable

Even though networking is one of the last infrastructure components to go open source, Kudo thinks it was an inevitable step forward. “There is a long history, as you know,” he said. “There was a movement from mainframe to open systems. It took more than 20 years. At that time Linux emerged. Linux changed the IT world. And people are expecting the same thing in networking as well. At the start point of the emergence of SDN, Open Daylight was proposed and established. Then people are very much excited about this concept.”

How do OpenStack and OpenDaylight fit together from a product perspective? NEC is working on several open-source projects that are very closely related, Kudo said. “For example, we are contributing to OpenStack in a tremendous amount of contribution code … and this kind of improvement will help our social infrastructure as well as our environment,” he explained.

What has the impact of open source been for NEC? “We recognize that a single company cannot realize the total solution for SDN controllers. And so we think that by leveraging open-source technology, our product can be much more mature.”

He also believes that collaborating with other companies can also result in better functionality for customers and end users. “By supporting both a product and open source, customers will be much happier,” he said.

Watch the full interview with Masashi Kudo below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of OpenDaylight Summit 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE