Unifying network components so they could be consumed in a holistic manner was the challenge Cisco System Inc. solved with the aptly named Unified Computing System, commonly known as UCS. Now, the challenge is making networking flexible as software consumption becomes an ever evolving, available everywhere, anytime model.

With the launch of Pensando Systems Inc. as it emerged from stealth mode in late 2019, Cisco’s famous MPLS gang and their USC cohorts are setting out to create a new option for network infrastructure and challenging Amazon Inc.’s Annapurna Labs innovation crown.

“Let’s build something which is bigger, beastier, and something even if we have a possibility of failing it. Let’s still go ahead and attempt doing that kind of thing,” said Vipin Jain (pictured), co-founder and chief technology officer of Pensando Systems Inc.

Jain spoke with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during Pensando’s Future Proof Your Enterprise event. They discussed the Pensando team’s plans for changing the future of networking. (* Disclosure below.)

To the network edge and beyond

A whole new set of demands are opening up as compute expands into the cloud and out to the edge. As companies choose the technology to underpin their cloud computing strategy, getting the network infrastructure right is critical.

“It is going to very important to have an underpinning [cloud networking] infrastructure that is not just working efficiently, securely, but is highly cost effective and very high performance,” Jain said. “Network will become the essential element for things as we go forward.”

When it comes to speed and security in the cloud, “Amazon is really setting the bar that everyone is measured against,” Miniman said. The company’s Nitro technology is its claim to fame in battle for cloud supremacy, but Pensando offers an alternative for customers who choose not to opt for Nitro.

Independence gives more disruptive power

Despite its long-standing associations with Cisco, Pensando stands alone. This means it can do what it wants, however it wants. “We can be much more broader when we are independent company in trying to disrupt almost anything, because we don’t have any point of view to defend per se,” Jain said.

While it was launched as a competitor to Nitro, thinking of Pensando as just a chip-building company is missing the larger picture, according to Jain. About 60% of the company are in the software team rather than the ASIC or hardware team, he explained. “It’s the software that runs data path pipeline,” he said. “There is also a layer of software that we are building that can help manage all the products in a more cohesive manner and unified way.”

Thinking broader than just product, the Pensando Distributed Services Platform has been designed as a leaping-off point. “Why stick ourselves to the data-centric power?” Jain asked. “Why not work on something on edge cloud? Why not build solutions for 5G where latency and performance is super crucial?”

Open source and proud of it

Being open to open source is another way that Pensando has an edge over Amazon. “The cloud-native movement on how applications will be built and the normalization of APIs across multiple clouds is real. We are all seeing the benefits of it, and I think that that trend will continue,” Jain said.

Pensando is “100% aligned” with open source, according to Jain. Our stance largely is that if we are building a programmable platform, then the community is what is going to drive it,” Jain said.

However, the company doesn’t attempt to replicate open-source projects. “Instead [we] try to make people use those things in the best possible way, and the most efficient way, and the easiest possible way,” he said.

The importance of evangelizing the projects you’re working on is one lesson Jain personally learned from being part of the open-source community. Another important takeaway is the difficulty of making money working with an open-source-based strategy and product.

Pensando is working toward getting to a stable situation where it becomes a place to encourage and empower newcomers to open source, while at the same time contributing its programs into the open-source community and defining the right abstractions into the community, according to Jain.

Being ahead of the game is in the company’s DNA, as is competitiveness. Although Pensando is a new entry in the cloud platform market, it’s not one that is shy about stepping up and making its presence known.

“Amazon is a really great benchmark to beat,” Jain said. “So make no mistakes, we are very happy to say that we are doing quite comfortably.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Pensando’s Future Proof Your Enterprise event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Future Proof Your Enterprise event. Neither Pensando, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE