OpenFlow

[Martin Sustrik]

Hi all,

Gary berger kindly pointed me to the Open Network Foundation
(www.opennetworkingfoundation.org) that develops OpenFlow protocol
(www.openflow.org).

Open Flow is "added as a feature to commercial Ethernet switches,
routers and wireless access points � and provides a standardized hook to
allow researchers to run experiments, without requiring vendors to
expose the internal workings of their network devices. OpenFlow is
currently being implemented by major vendors, with OpenFlow-enabled
switches now commercially available."

In short, OpenFlow allows to hook into working of network switch.

From SP's point of view OpenFlow opens a way to add SP routing directly
into network switches (with the prospect of moving the functionality
into HW later on).

To get an idea how it can be done, here's a paper about OpenFlow load
balancer, which is pretty close to functionality that SP would benefit from:

http://goo.gl/Kc4og

At the moment the point is that even if we won't address the
SP-enbedded-in-switch immediately, we should keep this use case in mind,
so that we won't accidentally prevent it by some wrong design decision.

Thoughts?
Martin

[Gary Berger]

Just to be clear, OpenFlow is an implementation aspect of the broader goal of Software Defined Networks (SDN). The group should watch this presentation[1] by Scott Shenker, UC Berkley on SDN. Also look at the Cross Stratum initiative [2]

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVs7Pc99S7w
2. http://www.cccso.net/CSOWorkshopFinal.html

-g

.:|:.:|:.  Gary Berger | Architect, Office of the CTO, SNBU | Cisco Systems | One Penn Plaza | New York, NY 10119 | Phone: 917.288.8691

On 8/4/11 5:37 AM, "Martin Sustrik" <sus...@250bpm.com> wrote:

Hi all,

Gary berger kindly pointed me to the Open Network Foundation

(www.opennetworkingfoundation.org) that develops OpenFlow protocol

(www.openflow.org).

Open Flow is "added as a feature to commercial Ethernet switches,

routers and wireless access points – and provides a standardized hook to

allow researchers to run experiments, without requiring vendors to

expose the internal workings of their network devices. OpenFlow is

currently being implemented by major vendors, with OpenFlow-enabled

switches now commercially available."

In short, OpenFlow allows to hook into working of network switch.

From SP's point of view OpenFlow opens a way to add SP routing directly

into network switches (with the prospect of moving the functionality

into HW later on).

To get an idea how it can be done, here's a paper about OpenFlow load

balancer, which is pretty close to functionality that SP would benefit from:

http://goo.gl/Kc4og

At the moment the point is that even if we won't address the

SP-enbedded-in-switch immediately, we should keep this use case in mind,

so that we won't accidentally prevent it by some wrong design decision.

Thoughts?

Martin

--

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