Inder Monga, ESnet’s chief technology officer, will give a keynote talk on “SDN Opportunities in Smart Cities” at a July 7 workshop on The Software Defined Network – Programmable City. The workshop, to be held in Bristol, England, is sponsored by Bristol Is Open and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the adoption of open software-defined networking (SDN).

According to the organizers, the emergence of smart technology in cities such as Bristol, is generating many Internet of Things (IoT) requirements that industry organizations like ONF will implement in future protocol development. As one of the leaders in liveable smart cities, Bristol will be an important resource for ONF, as a source of information in the development of future IoT specific standards.

Monga is an internationally recognized leader in SDN and has given talks on the subject at meetings around the globe and is an ONF research associate. In recognition of ESnet’s leadership in SDN, Monga was asked to organize a two-day workshop in Washington, D.C. in December 2013 to plan a path forward to develop, deploy and operate a prototype SDN network.