I am wondering if Cisco’s ACI Software Defined Networking (SDN) solution is vaporware. We will start by looking at the traits of vaporware, which include:

• Product announced as a result of a competitor’s action
• Loosely or undefined release date
• Non-Specific set of features
• Lack of product demos or customer betas

VMware’s purchase of Nicira seems to be the catalyst for Cisco’s stepped up campaign against “software only” network virtualization, a form of SDN. Prior to the VMware’s purchase of Nicira, Cisco had been dismissive of the technology in general. In the past, Cisco has said that SDN was not a feature that customers desired. According to Cisco’s earlier comments, customers did not want network virtualization per say but the ability that it brought. To Cisco, the goal was not abstraction of the control or data plane but the ability to control the network via API’s. By putting this capability in…