Continuing our series of sponsor interviews, we have Dave Roberts, Vyatta's vice president of strategy and marketing. Dave talks about Vyatta's contributions to the FOSS community, Vyatta's background, and why Vyatta is helping to sponsor OLF.

Q: Please provide some background on Vyatta, and its product offerings related to Linux and open source.

Dave Vyatta was founded in 2005 by a group of networking and open-source veterans. Vyatta provides a commercially-supported open-source router/firewall/VPN product, based on Linux, that can power a modern corporate network. The system is designed to be as familiar as possible to an average network manager who is already schooled on proprietary products from Cisco or Juniper. So, the system is configured through a networking CLI and web interface and doesn't require a network administrator to use bash or standard Linux tools. However, because the system is built on Linux, all the Linux tools are still there and available for the advanced administrator. Using off-the-shelf x86 hardware, we deliver more than twice the performance of Cisco mid-range routers, at only half the price, proven by independent testing.

Q: How does Vyatta work with the Linux/open source community? How do Linux and the community help your company?

Dave Vyatta works closely with the Linux/open source community. Surrounding the Vyatta product itself, we sponsor a set of community tools, including mailing lists, a wiki, public bugzilla, and a git source code repository. We also work with a number of different open source projects that are incorporated into our system, some of which we sponsor monetarily.

Linux and the surrounding community have been very helpful to our company. First, we make direct use of Linux, both the kernel and the Debian distribution, in our system. Second, we draw from a number of different packages to implment various features in the Vyatta system. Finally, we rely heavily on the growing Vyatta community to provide us input on the system, both about bugs and about desirable enhancements.

Q: Does your company contribute to the Linux/open source community, and if so, how?

Dave: Most definitely. We do so in the following ways:

1. We obviously contribute the code we write.
2. As I mentioned, we provide direct support for development work on projects that we're particularly interested in.
3. In August, 2007, Vyatta sponsored the Vyatta Open Arcade Classic event during LinuxWorld. This event raised money for a few open source projects and foundations by challenging people to play in a classic video game tournament. Over $5,000 was raised and donated to open source projects and foundations.
4. Finally, we support other open source vendors by using commercial open source products and paying for subscriptions and support for key pieces of our infrastructure.

Q: How are your customers using Linux and open source?

Dave: Service providers are using our secure router to deliver a full range of offerings to their customers worldwide. Charles Sibbald, of OpenTelcom in the UK calls Vyatta, "a vital part of our six nines infrastructure." Local governments are using our secure router and firewall to save thousands of dollars over proprietary networks and deliver connectivity to more users. In Madera, Paul Wheeler says, "Vyatta saved us a total of $16,000. I would like Cisco to go away and just have Vyatta." You can read these case studies and more on our web site.

Q: Why is Linux/FOSS important for your company?

Dave Sir Isaac Newton once wrote, "If I have seen farther than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." In a sense, open source represents the shoulders of giants to everybody in the industry, allowing everybody to build on all the good work that has gone on before. Vyatta might paraphrase Newton's quote as, "If Vyatta is able to deliver value to the market place, it is because we have stood on the shoulders of open-source giants."

Q: Where do you see the Linux/FOSS market going in the next year?

Dave: Up, up, and away. Open source is the proverbial irresistable force--nothing can stop it. Because it allows collaboration and improvement, it also speeds up over time.

Q: How does supporting OLF fit into your company's strategy?

Dave: Vyatta believes that open-source is primarily a bottom-up phenomenon. Linux was not adopted by CIOs or IT strategy councils. It was adopted by individuals in organizations large and small, that have jobs to do and look to open source to deliver cheaper, better, and quicker solutions than those available in the proprietary world. It's at events like OLF and others that Vyatta is able to make direct contact with those "boots on the ground." In short, OLF attendees are Vyatta kind of people.

Q: What's Vyatta really like?

Dave: I could tell you, but it's easier to show you. To learn more about Vyatta, check out our community page at http://www.vyatta.com/community/index.php [1]. You'll find download links, blogs, our wiki, and more. To read our newsletter, "Yatta, Yatta," and find out about our secret society, got to http://www.vyatta.com/newsletter/index.php [2].