  Networking is undergoing a transformation throughout our industry. The need
for scalable network control and automation shifts the focus from hardware
driven products with ad hoc control to Software Defined Networks. This process
is now well underway. In this paper, we adopt the perspective of the Promise
Theory to examine the current and future states of networking technologies. The
goal is to see beyond specific technologies, topologies and approaches and
define principles. Promise Theory's bottom-up modeling has been applied to
server management for many years and lends itself to principles of
self-healing, scalability and robustness.
