SDN: A Brief Anatomy and History

JasonGintert|Co-Founder/CTO,WANDynamics

What is SDN?

DEFINITION: Software-defined networking (SDN) is an approach to compu te r ne two rk ing t ha t a l l ows ne two rk administrators to programmatically initialize, control, change, and manage network behavior dynamically via open interfaces and abstraction of lower-level functionality. Source: Wikipedia

What is SDN?

Key: The Controller

Why SDN?

Agility: Networks becoming larger, more complex and difficult to manage. Need to deploy new/update services and features more rapidly.

Image: SDN Essentials

Why SDN?

Business Intent: Details of network operations can and should be abstracted (VLANs, ACLs, QoS, etc) allowing for greater speed to

deployment and change.

“I want new server(s)/app(s) here, I don’t care how that happens.”

Image: SDN Essentials

Why SDN?

Interoperability: Configuration and network policy controllers using open standards abstract platform specifics to create a vendor neutral environment.

Why SDN?

Mgmt/Monitoring: Need real-time control and visibility with streaming telemetry. CLI/SNMP not up to task of maintaining modern networks!

Vs.

Why SDN?

CIOs: Rest of compute and storage infrastructure leveraging orchestration and automation for agility, network should as well.

Old Hat!

SDN is the “New Hotness” … but NOT New

•  Roots in “Active Networking”/GeoPlex - Late ‘90s •  Control/Data Plane Split - Early ’00s •  Clean Slate/Ethane/OpenFlow - Mid ’00s •  NOX/POX/ONIX/Beacon/Floodlight – Late ‘00s •  ODL/ONOS/P4… Ok, those are pretty new J

SDN Milestones

Back to the Controller

SDN Controller Timeline

Northbound API: REST

•  Create•  Read•  Update•  Delete

curl-XGEThCp://sdn-controller.org:8181/api/devicescontroller=sdk.Controller('sdn-controller.org',8181)response=controller.get_devices()routers_started=[device.start()fordeviceinresponse.get_payload()ifdevice.type=='Router']

Southbound APIs: OpenFlow Protocol

Images: ONF

TCP/6653

Southbound APIs: Open vSwitch (OVS)/ Open vSwitch Database (OVSDB)

Southbound APIs: NETCONF/YANG

Notable Production SDN Networks

•  AmazonAWS•  VPC–2009-Cloud•  ELB–2010-Cloud

•  Google•  B4–2011-WANInterconnectE/W•  Jupiter–2012–Datacenter•  Andromeda–2014–Cloud•  Espresso–2017– Peering

•  Microsod•  SONiC–2016-Cloud

Commercial SDN Controller Options

•  VMware NSX Controller (Proprietary/ONIX based) •  Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller

aka APIC (ODL based) •  Dell Active Fabric Controller (ODL based) •  Juniper Contrail (Proprietary) •  Big Switch Big Cloud Fabric Controller (FL based) •  Brocade SDN Controller (ODL based) •  Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Controller

(ODL based)

More Commercial SDN Controller Options

•  ADVA SDN Controller (ODL based) •  Avaya Fabric Orchestrator (ODL based) •  Ciena Blue Planet Controller (ODL based) •  Coriant Transcend Controller (ODL based) •  Extreme OneController (ODL based) •  Ericsson Cloud SDN (ODL based) •  Fujitsu Virtuora Network Controller (ODL based) •  NEC ProgrammableFlow PF6800 Controller (RYU

based) •  Oracle SDN Controller (ODL based)

Open Source SDN Controller Options

•  Open Daylight (ODL) •  Open Network Operating System (ONOS) •  Open Contrail •  Floodlight •  RYU •  FlowVisor •  Project Calico •  Beacon - Inactive •  NOX/POX - Inactive

Do I really need to know this?

“By2020,only30%ofnetworkoperahonsteamswillusethecommandlineinterface(CLI)astheirprimaryinterface,downfrom85%atYE16.”–AndrewLerner,Gartner11/2016

Where do I start?

SDNControllers•  Checkwithyourvendor(s)!•  OpenSourceControllers-Big3

•  OpenDaylight(ODL)•  hCps://www.opendaylight.org/

•  OpenNetworkOperahngSystem(ONOS)•  hCp://onosproject.org/

•  RYU•  hCps://osrg.github.io/ryu/

Where do I start?

vSwitchesthatworkw/controllers

•  OpenvSwitch(OVS)•  hCp://openvswitch.org/

•  Mininet•  hCp://mininet.org/

•  CumulusVX•  hCps://cumulusnetworks.com/products/

cumulus-vx/

Where do I start?

BasicSkillsforAutoma<on/Orchestra<on/SDN

•  “PythonforNetworkEngineers”•  hCps://pynet.twb-tech.com/

•  NetworktoCodeSlackChannel•  hCp://networktocode.com/community/

•  SDNHub•  hCp://sdnhub.org/

Where do I start?

Hot/NotableAutoma<onTools

•  NAPALM•  hCps://napalm-automahon.net/

•  Ansible•  hCps://www.ansible.com/

•  NetMiko•  hCps://github.com/ktbyers/netmiko

•  StackStorm•  hCps://stackstorm.com/

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