Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at the curious life of OpenFlow. This once hyped panacea has found a completely new life from its original purpose of replacing the forwarding plane programming method of switches. Tom compares it to the development of Viagra as originally being intended for high blood pressure. Company’s like NEC have taken OpenFlow, with their ProgrammableFlow derivative, and adapted it to a whole new set of purposes, in this case mitigating the spread of infections within networks. It’s always interesting to see an established tool reimagined with a new purpose.
