We had our first OpenStack Hangout, "OpenStack as a NFV Platform" on Tuesday Oct 21^st. If you are excited about the potential of NFV, this hangout is for you. Our expert panel discussed NFV fundamentals, NFV momentum, the Neutron NFV subteam, and the new Linux Foundation OPNFV project. What I liked the most about this hangout is that we had influencers, from different companies with different backgrounds, joining us and sharing their use cases and views on future trends.

Network virtualization is poised to become a key enabler for technology and business. This innovation is driven by the OpenStack Community that has come together to solve customers' business problems. For example, NFV promises to not only deliver high performance but also deterministic performance. This theme was highlighted throughout the discussion.

I want to take a moment and thank our moderator and panelists for doing an amazing job!

• Mark Voelker, Technical Leader, Cisco
• Russell Bryant, Senior Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat
• Toby Ford, AVP of Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Architecture & Strategy, AT&T
• Mark McLoughlin, Consulting Software Engineer, Red Hat
• Mark McClain, Yahoo!
• Ian Wells, Technical Leader, Cisco
• Chris Wright, Technical Director of SDN and NFV, Red Hat

Thank you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw865TKWVuE

The hangout is now available on-demand. Check out the clickable time stamps to browse and view this rich discussion.

For more information, check out these helpful resources shared by our panelists:

• Mark McLoughlin's blog | Network Function Virtualization: The Opportunity for OpenStack and Open Source.  | Network Function Virtualization: The Opportunity for OpenStack and Open Source.  
• Russell's blog | OpenStack Instance HA Proposal| OpenStack Instance HA Proposal
• Toby's keynote from the last OpenStack Summit: OpenStack User Case Study: AT&T
• Neutron NFV subteam: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Teams/NFV
• A list of development efforts tracked by the OpenStack NFV sub-team https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Teams/NFV#Development_Efforts
• An example of the gnarly details to geek out on: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/VirtDriverGuestCPUMemoryPlacement
• Neutron Specs
• Nova Specs

We had a great time hanging out with the influencers in the OpenStack community and we are looking forward to many more great hangouts in the future. Stay tuned for our next hangout when we will recap the key takeaways from the OpenStack Summit.

If you are going to OpenStack Summit in Paris, we hope you will join us for#CrepeStack on Monday Nov 3^rd, 8-11pm!  @CiscoDC is pleased to host this special event for the OpenStack community, where old school culinary skills will meet cutting-edge tech. Space is limited so RSVP now. Make sure you pick up your #CrepeStack entry sticker at the Cisco booth (C3). Who can say no to CREPES?

Here is some great reading for the plane to get you ready for the summit

• Your Cisco Guide to OpenStack Summit in Paris 2014 (Lora O' Haver)
• Cisco and OpenStack: Juno Release -Part 1 (Rohit Agarwalla)
• Cisco and OpenStack: Juno Release -Part 2 (Rohit Agarwalla)
• Engineers Unplugged S5|Ep12: OpenStack 101 (Amy Lewis)|Ep12: OpenStack 101 (Amy Lewis)
• #EngineersUnplugged S6 | Ep12: OpenStack the Project, the Product, and the Service (Amy Lewis)| Ep12: OpenStack the Project, the Product, and the Service (Amy Lewis)
• OpenStack Juno: the Basics (Mark Voelker)
• #CiscoChampion Radio S1|Ep 30 OpenStack for Enterprise (Rachel Bakker)|Ep 30 OpenStack for Enterprise (Rachel Bakker)

You may reach out to us on Twitter for more information on OpenStack hangouts and our activities at the OpenStack Summit: @marktvoelker, @ReneeYao1, @gserda.

A Bientot (see you soon)