Componentizing IOS!! But ... when?

Cisco's reorganization of the development group is truly significant.  If the company can actually commit to this self-administered genetic engineering ... no mean feat ... they have my admiration.   I spent a day or two this past week thinking about it, and wondered what I would consider a clear indicator of commitment to the new path.  Well, folks, this is it... opening up IOS.

This is a game-changing move for the company, but only if it's a timely move.  How quickly will they do it? How quickly can it be done?

Cisco opening up IOS - Network World

... "It's a significant step forward for us," said Don Proctor, senior vice president of Cisco's newly formed Software Group, at last week's C-Scape 2007 analyst conference. "Software turns out to be a key way that we can do what [we've] been talking about for some time, which is link business architecture to technology architecture in a meaningful way."

Cisco plans to "componentize" IOS – developing only one implementation of a specific function instead of several, depending on the image – dynamically link IOS services and move the software onto a Unix-based kernel. Cisco then plans to open up interfaces on IOS to allow third-party and customer-developed applications to access IOS services.

However, no timeframe for doing so was provided.
...

Powered by ScribeFire.