Juniper Networks Inc. has said it’s pulling out of the OpenDaylight consortium, while VMware Inc. has said it will downgrade its involvement from platinum membership to silver membership.

The OpenDaylight consortium is the body set up to maintain the Linux Foundation’s SDN controller project, but the loss of two of its key members is unlikely to set it back. That’s because the project still has far more supporters now than it ever did. It currently numbers 46 members, more than it had last December, and far more than when it first launched in 2013 with just 17 members.

Juniper’s decision to exit the project doesn’t come as that much of a surprise, since the company is also developing its own OpenContrail controller software in a project that’s also backed by CA, the International Internet Exchange, Australian data centre business Megaport, and Spirent. Therefore, Juniper’s confidently betting that it doesn’t really need OpenDaylight anyway, as it’s own offering will be superior.

The Register didn’t have much to say about the reasons for VMware’s decision to scale back its involvement in the group. Initially it was reported that VMware was dropping out altogether as well, however The Register later clarified it was merely becoming less involved than it had been.

Previously, Big Switch Networks Inc. was the only founding member of OpenDaylight to drop support for the project. It left the group in 2013, just months after it was formed, in protest over a decision to use Cisco Systems Ltd.’s controller code instead of its own.

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