Segment Routing is crossing the chasm with real live deployments!

As stated in my previous blog on Segment Routing, 2016 marks an inflexion point in Segment Routing adoption.

I’m not making this claim in a vacuum. This is actually grounded on multiple Service Providers’ feedback expressed during a Tech Field Day event on Segment Routing held last week in San Jose.

Tech Field Day brought together experts from Walmart, Microsoft and Comcast to discuss and share their perspective on Segment Routing.

The speakers presented to a delegate panel of independent industry veterans and bloggers who are respected names in the industry. During the session anyone watching the live stream could interact with the panel by using a special twitter hash tag – #SegmentRouting. If you are on Twitter you can search this # and read all the comments made during the event. Videos from the Segment Routing Tech Field Day Session can be found here on YouTube.

Here is a brief recap of the morning sessions:

• Mark Pagan, from Walmart, started the day with an insight into Walmart’s decision to roll out Segment Routing for their brand new Global WAN. Mark stressed the simplicity Segment Routing brings to operations by cutting down the number of protocols to be operated (LDP is no longer needed for instance).
• Next, Paul Mattes, from Microsoft, shared details about the use of Segment Routing in a hyperscale environment. Being able to control how their applications are transported over their WAN network enables Microsoft to not only optimize network infrastructure utilization but also to deliver a better End-User experience. For those interested in understanding the roots of this project, check out this White Paper published in 2013 by Microsoft.
• Finally, John Leddy, from Comcast, gave a status update on Comcast’s IPv6 implementation and talked about the power of bringing IPv6 and Segment Routing together! This was a mind-blowing presentation that triggered many questions from the panelists. Watch the video and learn about the multiple Use Cases Comcast has started to work on!

Afternoon sessions were dedicated to Cisco presentations and to a delegate roundtable:

• Sumeet Arora, SVP Engineering in charge of Core Software Group, gave an overview of Cisco software innovations, that enable Service Providers to operate their network infrastructure with greater efficiency and agility.
• Clarence Filsfils, Cisco Fellow, shared a status on Segment Routing by looking at what has been accomplished over the past 3 years. As a take-away, Segment Routing is the de-facto SDN network architecture.
• Jose Liste, Technical Marketing Engineer, showcased two demos – On-Demand Next Hop and Segment Routing IPv6.

This event clearly exemplifies the adoption of Segment Routing across diverse customer segments, be it Enterprise, Hyperscale Web Provider or Cable Operator.

If you’re interesting in getting regular updates on Segment Routing, become a member of our LinkedIn group and visit this public segment-routing website to get access to multiple resources.

We certainly want to hear from you. Please reply back and give us your thoughts on this Tech Field Day Event.

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