Bare Metal software-defined networking (SDN) company Big Switch Networks and IT company Dell have established a partnership to accelerate the adoption of SDN to a wider audience.

The partnership - which comes in response to strong customer demand for a “practical” migration path to SDN-  will see Dell reselling the Big Switch Big Tap application, as well as the Switch Light Operating System which will run on its high-performance open networking switches.

Big Tap uses an SDN-centric architecture, it enables tapping traffic everywhere in the network and delivers it to any troubleshooting, network monitoring, application performance monitoring or security tools

Big Switch said it will strengthen Dell’s open networking initiative by offering customers “compelling” business case for adopting SDN technologies for needed agility to quickly deploy network services and business applications.

South Carolina-based Clemson Univeristy’s CIO Jim Bottum said the future is SDN-based with open software and hardware, and a practical way to get there is required.

Dell’s general manager of the networking business unit, Tom Burns backed up Bottum and said, “Traditional enterprises are making the move to SDN incrementally, and they want the assurance that they are going to be well supported along the entire path.”