When it came to choosing the right SDN vendor partners, Becerra said he was careful about choosing only those startups that expressed a growing commitment to the channel. But, more importantly, he said it boiled down to technology.

"First and foremost, we have to believe in their technology and we have to feel that our customers believe in it," Becerra said.

In the case of Big Switch, Cumulus and Pica8, Terrapin was drawn to the "openness" of their solutions, many of which present customers with a choice of both hardware and software, or with a network operating system that is completely self-programmable.

"They give customers more freedom, and less vendor lock-in," Becerra said.

Partnering with new vendors isn't the only way Terrapin is re-positioning itself as a leading solution provider in the SDN space; it's also tweaked its marketing messages and online presence. The company's web site, for instance, features the tag line: 'Delivering The Open Network Advantage.'

What's more, Becerra said Terrapin is holding internal technical training sessions roughly once every two weeks to bring its engineers up to speed on the latest and greatest in SDN technology. He said those sessions sometimes focus on vendor-specific solutions, but also general SDN concepts, such as the separation of the network data plane from the control plane, or the need to separately support network hardware and software.

On the SDN sales side, Becerra said Terrapin has adopted a more "educational approach" when pitching customers on SDN technologies.
 
"There is more of an education process with customers," he said. "We are having more meetings and whiteboard sales in an SDN sale that a standard manufacturer sale."

In addition to being a new driver of growth, Becerra said SDN, just as importantly, has allowed Terrapin to bring a broader range of vendor partners and technologies into its fold – something he said the company has always strived to do.

"We have to be independent. We can't align ourselves with one major manufacturer," Becerra said. "To me, that's our job."