Another big player to watch in the evolving SDN market is , whose hardware and software is omnipresent in enterprise, data center and service provider networks. Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior kicks off Tuesday morning's Expo with a keynote address, and while her speech is slated to discuss three macro industry trends -- mobility, cloud and video -- Cisco has been working in recent months on its programmability strategy, as it calls its response to SDN.

At the company's recent business partner conference in April, Cisco CEO John Chambers confirmed that the company is funding and plans to absorb Insieme, a startup developing a software-defined networking (SDN) system. 

At the conference, Warrior told Network World, "Clearly we understand the implication of what is good about [SDN] and what are the things we need to improve," Warrior told Network World at the conference.

From that conference Network World's Jim Duffy wrote: "The single most visible aspect of Cisco's programmability strategy -- the company seems careful not to label it as an SDN initiative -- is Insieme, the Cisco-funded startup building what is believed to be a programmable switch line supporting OpenStack and distributed data storage. Cisco initially invested $100 million in Insieme, with the right to purchase the remaining interests of the company for up to $750 million."

MORE: