Cisco has been developing the technology it believes can deliver networks on demand: It recently open sourced a virtual switch and router, the Vector Packet Processor, to the recently formed FD.io community to provide network operators with a modular and high-performance infrastructure using existing Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC)-based systems. The VPP supports 480Gbit/s throughput in 24 cores, with another 48 available. “It’s pretty much everything you need to deploy a virtual network and it’s screamingly fast,” Ward says.