Just a few short years ago, the situation in networking resembled the state computer architecture was in more than 30 years ago. Network services were provided by a few specialized service providers whose operations were based on network devices that were very similar to early computers: black boxes that could not be modified and were guarded by proprietary laws.
From this perspective, the SDN movement represents the same type of major change in the networking world as occurred in computer architecture many years ago. Instead of having an all-in-one solution, it is beneficial to decouple the components and use them separately see Figure 2. They will communicate with each other via defined and standardized open interfaces. Thus different hardware and software providers can independently develop solutions that can be easily integrated into a network that better suits customers' needs.
Such an approach also considerably shortens the time-to-market for new solutions. Even more importantly, modern service providers can compete by providing their own innovative networking functionalities that will differentiate their portfolio from those of others.
This allows them to create a competitive advantage over competitors and spread fresh ideas across the networking market. This process is not unlike the innovative computer applications that flood the market every day. So, SDN technology is changing our approach to network architecture. To better understand this change, we need to explain two essential notions: data plane and control plane separation.
In the traditional network infrastructure that is most commonly applied today, there is a set of black boxes with dedicated hardware, an operating system and functionalities provided by networking vendors. This makes the whole infrastructure very difficult to manage and leads to vendor lock-in see Figure 3. In the SDN approach, the underlying role of hardware is to maintain the definition of a data plane. Network functions, on the other hand, are moved to centralized software that defines the control plane by which, in turn, the data plane is defined.
As Figure 4 shows, to make this possible on the hardware, there are agents that work as an interface between the hardware and the network operating system NOS. For example, if a routing application is called for, it is implemented within the NOS, which in turn communicates with the hardware.
The hardware behaves according to what has been defined in the app. Ethernet Switching for Enterprise Data Centers. How to build your tech sales team amid the Great Resignation Part 1. The Psychology of Cybercrime. Earn a VSE accreditation this November and get rewarded. Go back. Centralized network provisioning. Holistic enterprise management. More granular security. Lower operating costs. Hardware savings and reduced capital expenditures.
Cloud abstraction. Guaranteed content delivery. Where do you see the biggest benefit in deploying software defined networking? Learn More. Currently, OpenFlow has gained support by many influential players in the Networking ecosystem but it is by no means complete. The standards are evolving and growing to cover more areas of the networks and will continue to expand.
It has the potential to be the one control protocol to sit over all networking protocols but its future is by no means guaranteed. We will have to wait and watch to see how the big players choose to adopt SDN and whether openness and collaboration are seen as advantageous to them commercially or if they decide that pushing forward in a proprietary way achieve their goals faster in the long term. Unfortunately, some of the fundamentals of the implementation have been accused of being less open then others and they have developed their own protocol called OpFlex.
Arista Networks has been the fastest growing vendor in the space heralded as taking a very open and agnostic approach which provides a very compelling offering for businesses looking to avoid vendor lock-in. HP and Dell are other big players in the market with HP sporting a very large portfolio of products but Dell exhibiting the ability to execute and achieving good market growth.
Both HP and Dell have products that support OpenFlow and seem to be open to implementing the standards into their network product ranges. Juniper Networks is a stalwart in the space with visionary status but have been marred by confusing marketing messaging which has stunted their growth.
Other players in the market are Brocade, Extreme, Huawei and Avaya all of which have embraced OpenFlow to different extents and have some market share to their name. SDN is an exciting and evolving area in the modern data centre which we will see more interest and adoption of in the upcoming year.
Will it be based on open standards and interoperability? We will have to wait and see, what we know for sure is that networks are getting larger, bandwidth requirements are increasing along with the number of connected devices and our data networks will have to change and adapt to that growth and rate of change to keep up with the rest of Datacenter technologies.
Topics: Networking and SDN. Request Demo. Turbonomic Blog.
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