Computer Networking & Security

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In today’s digital world, connectivity and speed are game changers among global competition.

Computer devices must be able to connect to each other, utilize the Internet, exchange data and information with each other at lightning speeds — whether it is over physical or wireless technologies. Behind the scenes, Open Source is driving this worldwide digital transformation and impacting the daily lives of individuals and businesses throughout society. We have come to expect information to be shared between devices within milliseconds. And we expect this to happen without security breaches. To ensure this takes place requires collective effort and involves all parties — from programmers and developers, to businesses of all sizes and government organizations — involved in the software development ecosystem. After all it is Open Source code that is the key driver behind not only software services and products, but it provides connectivity between computing devices allowing them to exchange data and share resources. DevSecOps divisions are leading the way by approaching security as an ongoing part of software development and “baking” security into every step of the development cycle.

Unfortunately, Open Source security is a growing global concern as cyberattacks against computer networks increase. (Read our in-depth whitepaper about Open Source Security.) According to an article in Security Brief Asia, cyberattacks against corporate networks increased 50% in 2021. Education and research industries were hit the hardest, averaging 1,605 attacks per week, with government organizations, communications companies, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) close behind. Even attacks on healthcare were up 71% on pre-pandemic levels, showing nothing is off-limits to threat actors. The Check Point Software “2022 Security Report” also disclosed that email is an increasingly popular way to distribute malware — especially during the pandemic — and now accounts for 84% of malware distribution.

Given what is at stake, the Open Source community needs to unite and tackle these security issues. As just one example of more that will follow from the global community, the Open Source Security Foundation’s Alpha-Omega Project is improving software supply chain security for 10,000 Open Source Software (OSS) projects. Microsoft and Google supported the project with an initial investment of $5 million and committed personnel for the initiative.

As a result of increasing automation, cloud usage, greater collaboration and evolving applications, organizations are de-centralizing their infrastructure approaches to optimize connectivity. Meanwhile, businesses are integrating Software-Defined Networking in Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN), which not only simplifies management and operation functions, but delivers flexible network infrastructures. Experts predict Intent-based networking will become more mainstream than it already is. Furthermore, as applications shift to containers and Kubernetes, the complexity of managing networks may challenge companies.
As the Network & Security landscape continues to evolve, industry businesses realize the benefits we bring to their companies when it comes to Open Source, Patent Protection and free cross-licensing to the Linux System patents of nearly 3,700 community members, including many of the largest competitors in Computer Networking & Security.

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Here are a few highlights about our community members:

Cisco | OIN Community Member

Cisco’s Network Service Mesh is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation sandbox project. Relying on Open Source, it frees individual Kubernetes Pods to network with other workloads across multiple clusters/clouds using a simple set of APIs designed to facilitate attaching those Pods to zero or more “Network Services” that provide connectivity, security and observability independent of where they are running.

D-Link | OIN Community Member

D-Link Corporation — established in 1986 and Taiwan’s 1st networking company on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1994 —  provides unified network solutions that integrate switching, wireless, broadband, surveillance and cloud-based network management capabilities.

H3C has filed over 11,000 patents, of which more than 90% are invention patents and many of which are built on Open Source Software (OSS).

IBM | OIN Community Member

IBM is — and has been — an advocate of Open Source for 25 years. Here’s their breakdown: 3,000+ IBMers are active in Open Source; 15,000 developers collaborate and commit to Open Source projects per month; and the company has hosted 1,900 GitHub repositories.

Juniper Networks | OIN Community Member

Juniper embraces industry standards and Open Source solutions to achieve operational simplicity in solving common networking problems all companies face. They are the largest contributor to Tungsten Fabric — an Open Source project under Linux Foundation Networking (LFN) — and are involved in the Tungsten Fabric governance body along with the technical community.

OIN Community Members

Open Source Advocates | Computer Networking & Security

Cisco | OIN Community Member
Juniper | OIN Community Member
Mellanox Technologies | OIN Community Member
Netgear - OIN Community Member
Sercom | OIN Community Member
Moxa | OIN Community Member
Accton | OIN Community Member
Advantech | OIN Community Member
Check Point Software Technologies | OIN Community Member
Rackspace Hosting | OIN Community Member
Barracuda | OIN Community Member
D-Link | OIN Community Member

What Members are Saying

With the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) reshaping what is possible in industrial settings — improving productivity, enhancing operational efficiency and increasing customer choice — we view Linux and other open source projects as key enablers in the IIOT. The success of the IIOT is predicated on the ability to connect and manage widely distributed sensors and devices across numerous vertical industries and compute the data effectively on an industrial scale.  
Peter KohlschmidtCTOMoxa