Vendors of all kinds of routers have to make critical decisions about how to respond to the rise of disaggregated networks, in which functions run in software on white boxes. Some are clinging to remnants of the traditional, profitable model by developing white boxes which are still quite proprietary; some are adopting open platforms in their core markets and looking to move into high value parts of the stack; and others are using the new architectures to push into new sectors entirely. Coriant falls into the last category, announcing a network operating system (NOS) which it hopes will take its router technology beyond its current base in mobile backhaul, and into other segments. The Coriant NOS is the latest such…