Open source has made great strides in the networking space. However, difficult issues still remain. Almost every business uses legacy processes, and bringing those older systems to work with open source is a challenge. Also, companies often build their systems with products from multiple vendors, leading to a lack of standardization. This has created an opening for a number of companies to help bridge the gap between open-source networking and the real world.

To gain a better understanding of the open-source perspective, John Furrier (@furrier) and Lisa Martin (@Luccazara), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, broadcast live from the OpenStack Days: Silicon Valley 2016 conference in Mountain View, California. There, they spoke to Gershon Diner, executive VP of Strategic Alliances, Customer Services and Technical Support at GigaSpaces Technologies Ltd.

Breaking silos

The discussion opened up with a look at the challenges companies face. Diner explained that a business could have many silos and their tools, and now OpenStack as well. He felt that if OpenStack wants to go to the next level and mature even more, it needs to have something to break those silos. He then pointed out that most enterprise businesses use at least two Cloud providers and six Clouds. These need to be managed.

Diner described how GigaSpaces was contributing to the open-source effort with training and OpenStack sessions. The idea is to collaborate, bring people together, and contribute back, otherwise it’s silos again, he said.

Collaboration and future-proofing

Diner next took a moment to talk about using open-source solutions. He said the idea was to create a standard by collaborating and extending. He advised that the real power of open source wasn’t buying-in on the cheap, but being able to collaborate and extend the technology. Find a successful use case and replicate it, he said.

On the subject of future-proof systems, Diner mentioned that every customer today wants to avoid being locked into one vendor. It’s vital for businesses today to remain open to new technologies to make sure they’re ready for the future.

“It’s not a marketing thing; you really have to future-proof,” he said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the OpenStack Days: Silicon Valley 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE