Solution providers should add white-box, bare-metal offerings to their portfolios in 2016, with adoption rates increasing as customers seek cheaper switches on which to run software, says JR Rivers (pictured), co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Networks.

Cumulus' flagship open-networking Cumulus Linux operating system runs on bare-metal switches, which saw an uptick in adoption rates in 2015. Infonetics Research says bare-metal switches will make up nearly 25 percent of all data center ports shipped worldwide in 2019, an increase from just 11 percent in 2014. This year also saw industry giants such as HP and Dell jump on the white-box bandwagon.

Rivers says the networking industry is becoming more open as organizations want the ability to choose their own software solutions on top of hardware. For more detail, read our Q&A with him.