Programmable Flow-based Networking with OpenFlow

Ｐage 1 NEC Confidential

Dr. Marcus Brunner

NEC Labs Europe - Network Divisionbrunner@nw.neclab.eu

ETSI Workshop on Future Internet, March 10-11, 2010, Nice, France

Networking with OpenFlow

OpenFlow - Overview

Switch Controller

Switch Controller

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #2

Dumb but fastAs dumb or intelligent as you want it to be

Protocol

Switch Controller

What’s OpenFlow technology ?

• Separation of control plane and data plane• Enable flow-based network programmability from controllers

OpenFlowControllerOpenFlow

Switch

Securesw

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #3

FlowTable

SecureChannel

hw

sw

OpenFlow’s Flow Switching Definition

Legacy L2/L3 switching and routingLegacy L2/L3 switching and routingLegacy L2/L3 switching and routingLegacy L2/L3 switching and routingLayer 2 (MAC) SwitchingLayer 2 (MAC) SwitchingLayer 2 (MAC) SwitchingLayer 2 (MAC) Switching

Layer 3 (IP) RoutingLayer 3 (IP) RoutingLayer 3 (IP) RoutingLayer 3 (IP) Routing

Ingress Port

Ether src

Ether dst

Ether type

VLAN id IP src IP dst IP proto

TCP/UDP src

port

TCP/UDP dst

port

VLAN PCP (*6)

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #4

port port(*6)

Flow Switching with any combinations of tuples as a keyFlow Switching with any combinations of tuples as a keyFlow Switching with any combinations of tuples as a keyFlow Switching with any combinations of tuples as a key- Exact Matching : - Wild Card Matching:

-Aggregated MAC-subnet: MAC-src: A.*, MAC-dst: B.*-Aggregated IP-subnet: IP-src: 205.16.*/24, IP-dst: 206.12.*/24

Definition of Flow and programmabilityRule

(exact & wildcard) Action Statistics

Rule(exact & wildcard) Default Action Statistics

Flow 1.

Flow N.

Actions for flow(ie)Switch: Unicast, Multcast,

Definition of flow filtering(ie)

Flow statistics(ie) Switch: Number of

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #5

(ie)Switch: Unicast, Multcast, bandwidth control, Flitering, load

balancing, alarm recovery, tunneling, encryption

(ie)Switch: Port, VLAN ID, L2,

L3, L4, …

(ie) Switch: Number of packet, byte, connection

time

1.

Unicast

2.Multicast

4.

Waypoints� Middleware� Intrusion detection� …

3.Multipath� Load-balancing� Redundancy

Example ofActions

OpenFlow - Operation

Switch

ControllerController

ControllerController

Secure channel

Flow table

change

Rules/Headers Actions Counters

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #6

Switch Controller

• Ethernet switch + OpenFlow• Dedicated OpenFlow switch

• Specialized piece of HW/SW• PC and a process

OpenFlow - Operation

Switch ControllerSecure channel

Flow tableIngress Port

Eth src

Eth dst

Eth type

VLAN ID

IP src IP dst IP proto

src port

dst port

Any Any Any Any Any 1.1.1.1 Any 6 Any 80

OpenFlow 10-tuple

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #7

Switch Controller

Actions:• Forward

• physical port• all• controller (= encapsulate)• switch’s “normal” processing pipeline•…

• Drop

OpenFlow - Operation

Switch ControllerSecure channel

Flow tableIngress Port

Eth src

Eth dst

Eth type

VLAN ID

IP src IP dst IP proto

src port

dst port

action

Any Any Any Any Any 1.1.1.1 Any 6 Any 80 To(4)

Any Any Any Any Any Any Any Any Any Any cntrl

Any Any Any Any Any 2.2.2.2 Any Any Any Any drop

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #8

Switch Controller

Switch

port(4)

What can we do with it?

• Allows to easily change the control (algorithms, policies, etc.)– Innovative OpenFlow Controller functions are key

• Flexibility– Control can be simple to complex

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #9

– Control can be simple to complex– Granularity of control can be different

• Applicable to various scenarios– Not only the test network use case

Flow-based Network

Controller Flow 1Flow 2

AP 1

AP 2 AP 2

AP 1FabricSwitch

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #10

Server Server

AP 2 AP 2

Firewall or Load Balancer

Can be switched to powersaving modeCan be shutdown for

servicing

� Mesh and Per-flow QoS

� Service Insertion

� Load Concentration

Wide-area / mobile network

Internet2 ISPs

CarriersOpenFlow

switch

Controlserver

Campus network

innovative students develop their innovative students develop their Fixed and mobile seamless control, Fixed and mobile seamless control, integrated optical network control, integrated optical network control,

Use case of OpenFlow switching network

Wireless

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #11

Data center network Enterprise network

innovative students develop their innovative students develop their own services and algorithmsown services and algorithms

integrated optical network control, integrated optical network control, flexible VPN management, etcflexible VPN management, etc……

Network and computing resources are Network and computing resources are tightly coupled and efficiently managedtightly coupled and efficiently managed Network control and security are tightly managedNetwork control and security are tightly managed

Controlserver

Controlserver

IT/NW Integration

• Unified platform for data center, transport and mobile networks.– Integrated controller for infrastructure virtualization/customization

• Real integration of IT and NW.– Optimized information flow through IT and NW

• OpenFlow is a key technology.– Open interface for future network control standard

Unified Controller

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #12

MobileNW

Data CenterNW

VM

TransportNW

Simplified Switch

Unified Controller

Open standards (e.g. OpenFlow)

Data CenterOperator

NetworkOperator

Virtualization with OpenFlow

• Virtual switching function (VSF)– Create multiple OpenFlow slices with multiple controllers– Separate OpenFlow slices/networks by VLAN

• Enable to coexist standard switch/router functions– Simultaneous executions of traditional switching/routing

functions and OpenFlow, separated via VLAN

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #13

Norm al L2/L3 Processing

Experim ent A

C ontroller A

C ontroller B

C ontroller C

Flow Table

Flow Table

Flow Table

Production traffic

Experim ent B

Experim ent C

Interest in Programmable Switching• GENI trials received $30M NSF Grant (Oct-19)

– “The funding will enable three sets of collaborating academic/industrial research teams to replicate those GENI prototype systems that have gained significant traction, based on GENI-enabled commercial hardware, across 14 U.S. campuses and two national research backbones.”

• European OpenFlow Testnetwork under discussion (FIRE, call5)• EU projects related to OpenFlow under discussion (call5)

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #14

Standardization issues

• The Controller to Switch/Router Interface requires standardization– OpenFlow is one example, there are a set of other protocols as well

(Forces, GSMP, ….)• Interface to OpenFlow Controller

– might eventually require some standards as well, e.g., management interfacae

• Open specification by OpenFlow Consortium

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #15

• Open specification by OpenFlow Consortium – a larger consortium of university researchers and network

administrators (no vendors allowed)– free even for commercial use– Ver. 1.0 released in Dec. 2009

� http://www.openflowswitch.org/documents/openflow-spec-v1.0.0.pdf

• Supported by Stanford Clean Slate Programme

OpenFlow in a Nutshell

• OpenFlow is…– A way for programmable flow-based networking– Enables a large set of applications due to its flexibility– A way for IT/NW integration

• Paradigm shift by OpenFlow– OpenFlow provides open interface to “black box” networking

NEC ConfidentialETSI WS on FI - March 10-11, 2010 - #16

– OpenFlow provides open interface to “black box” networking node (ie. Routers, L2/L3 switch) to enable visibility and openness in network

http://www.openflowswitch.org