From the ‘When Proprietary Doesn’t Matter’ files:
I’m a big believer in open source and open standards, which is why Juniper’s QFabric is something that I have struggled with. QFabric is Juniper’s proprietary fabric for data centers, one that kinda/sorta compete against Shortest Path Bridging and TRILL.
The fear with anything proprietary is always the lack of choice and vendor lock-in. It’s a fear that I heard in at Interop this year in a multi-vendor panel about alternatives to Spanning Tree in a loud and clear way.
That’s why my discussion with (former IDC analyst) Juniper’s Abner Germanow was such an eye opener for me. Sure QFabric is proprietary but it doesn’t necessary inhibit or preclude openness on top.