After overcoming the initial doubts that accompany every new paradigm in enterprise IT, the software-defined networking (SDN) wave quickly caught up to all the biggest names in the industry, with Cisco Systems Inc. and the other incumbent vendors now actively riding the wave. One notable exception has been Emulex Corp., which joined the fray in 2013 with the acquisition of a monitoring startup called Endance Ltd. but has been quiet in that area since.

That is, until the recent introduction of a new application development interface (API) that is aimed at allowing developers to manage network devices the same way they would interact with a cloud service. The Emulex OpenWorks Connector is the first in a series of RESTful APIs that the vendor is planning to roll out for its connectivity portfolio, starting with the OneConnect OCec14000 series of adapters.

According to the company, the API provides a full set of capabilities for configuring and provisioning network interface cards (NIC) and pushes instructions directly down to the hardware without the need for any special tinkering or a software agent. That kills two birds with one stone, avoiding the latency associated with introducing an extra layer of complexity to the stack while also eliminating the additional management overhead, costs and risks that come with it.

The direct hardware integration makes OpenWorks Connector especially well suited for use in bare-metal clouds, which are dedicated environments that don’t run  virtualization software. The API also offers the capability to provide each server with its own boot profile for Emulex adapters, which the company claims can enable service providers to further optimize their physical infrastructure. Support for virtual LANs is included as well.

But while the bare-metal model is certainly gaining traction thanks to the rise of technologies such as Docker and other resource-intensive tasks that require direct access to physical hardware, the majority of new enterprise servers employ a hypervisor. Recognizing that, Emulex has partnered with Egenera Inc. to integrate OpenWorks Connector with the latter’s  PAN Manager 8.0 provisioning tool, which works in both physical and virtual environments. The networking vendor will presumably provide support for more management solutions further down the road as it works to drive adoption of its SDN offering.

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