Barefoot Networks’ McKeown: On OpenFlow, P4 & the Programmable Network

It’s been a while since we caught up with Nick McKeown, chief scientist at Barefoot Networks. Longtime SDxCentral readers know the resume. McKeown and U.C. Berkeley professor, Scott Shenker got software-defined networking (SDN) off the ground through research that led to the OpenFlow protocol. They founded Nicira Networks with Martin Casado. Nicira is now part of VMware, which means McKeown is three for three in having startups get acquired. Now, he’s on his fourth try. With Barefoot Networks disclosing its plans this week (it’s developing a programmable switch chip and promoting the new P4 programming language), SDxCentral made the quick trip to Palo Alto.