The OpenDaylight Project, the networking industry's largest open source project focused on Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), today announced that Hitachi, Ltd. has joined the project at the Silver level.

"Japanese companies have a strong history of leadership and support in open source and The Linux Foundation, and we are now seeing them strongly ramp up participation and support in open networking and the OpenDaylight Project. It's encouraging to see the OpenDaylight community in Japan grow as Hitachi brings their expertise in delivering IT solutions to the project," said Neela Jacques, executive director, OpenDaylight. "Japanese companies rely heavily on networking and we see a significant need for open, programmable networks unified around a single, common platform."

OpenDaylight continues to expand its footprint both geographically and across different industries as it moves beyond the telecom space and into the enterprise, web-scale and financial services industries. Beyond Hitachi, additional organizations offering products, training or support on OpenDaylight in the Japanese market include Brocade, Cisco, Fujitsu, Huawei, NEC, and NTT Data. More than 10 end user organizations in Japan have already deployed OpenDaylight in their networks across a range of industries from government to enterprises. An active OpenDaylight User Group of more than 200 participants also meets regularly in Tokyo to share knowledge, recruit and onboard new developers, discuss best practices and technical challenges, and create awareness.

Additionally, the OpenDaylight Advisory Group (AG), which provides technical input to the OpenDaylight developer community, welcomed new advisor Carlos Matos, ONUG Board Member and Director of Global Network Architecture, Fidelity Investments.

The OpenDaylight Advisory Group provides technical and strategic input to the OpenDaylight developer community based on their expertise running some of the world's most demanding networks. Matos joins the 15 existing Advisory Group members: Pedro Aranda, Telefónica I+D; Jon Beasley, Thomson Reuters; Margaret Chiosi, AT&T; Dr. Jamil Chawki, Orange; Jay Etchings, Arizona State University; Johan Gustawsson, TeliaSonera Group; Chris Luke, Comcast; Harvey Newman, Caltech; Liang Ou, China Telecom; Dominick Paniscotti, Nasdaq; Vesko Pehlivanov, Credit Suisse; Wade Shao, Tencent; Ralf Trezeciak, Deutsche Telekom; Beau Williamson, T-Mobile; and Alex Zhang, China Mobile.