It was a short trip, but action packed from the keynote sessions, breakout sessions, and private sessions set up for some of us bloggers. I also somehow ended up in two Tech Field Day sessions as well. A big thanks to Ivy Worldwide and HP for bringing us out here. It was definitely interesting being at Interop as a blogger because we (about 6 of us) had some great access to HP product management, technical marketing, and executive team members. The group I was in also had the opportunity to sit down and have a Q&A with Bethany Mayer, SVP & GM of Networking at HP. Technology aside, they were a great group of people to talk with. For the ones I actually got to talk to for more than 2 minutes (of course, about SDN) listened and asked plenty of questions as I did back to them. I sincerely felt they wanted to solicit feedback on their solutions to further improve them. On that note, they did have some big announcements this week.
Reflecting back and writing about my first Interop as I wait to board a sweet red eye home to go straight into the city for a full day SDN session with Cisco is livin’ the dream, I say.
It was a short trip, but action packed from the keynote sessions, breakout sessions, and private sessions set up for some of us bloggers. I also somehow ended up in two Tech Field Day sessions as well. A big thanks to Ivy Worldwide and HP for bringing us out here. It was definitely interesting being at Interop as a blogger because we (about 6 of us) had some great access to HP product management, technical marketing, and executive team members. The group I was in also had the opportunity to sit down and have a Q&A with Bethany Mayer, SVP & GM of Networking at HP. Technology aside, they were a great group of people to talk with. For the ones I actually got to talk to for more than 2 minutes (of course, about SDN) listened and asked plenty of questions as I did back to them. I sincerely felt they wanted to solicit feedback on their solutions to further improve them. On that note, they did have some big announcements this week.
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There have already been a few great write ups of how to get OpenDaylight up and running. I referenced a few of them during my journey --- see links at bottom. This post also covers getting the controller installed, but I wanted to share some of the issues I ran into during the install process. It wasn’t 100% clean and smooth, but since I’m no expert in Linux, they were probably user errors. I hope this helps others out that go down this path and run into similar issues. I also run through some basics in Linux to aid others like myself that have been primarily users of Windows and the Cisco CLI.
Last year at ONS, Google announced they had built their own switches, OpenFlow controller, Traffic Engineering algorithms, and were using OpenFlow on their Wide Area Network links. This year, Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist announced they are also using OpenFlow in their data centers, not just between them anymore. So, what can’t Google do on their own and where could they use some help from the vendors out there? This was a question asked to Amin Vahdat, Distinguished Engineer at Google, during a panel discussion during this year’s Open Networking Summit.
After attending ONS last week, I will say there is some doubt on if the OpenDaylight Project (ODP) team can execute (not just about the project in general), but at the same time there is an increased amount of optimism from the SDN community. I first posted about the ODP here when it launched and I can say I’m one of the optimists at this point. Borrowing Omar Sultan’s LinkedIn headline, I’ll cautiously call myself a skeptical optimist. You always need a bit of healthy paranoia/skepticism, don’t you?
Goldman Sachs, the only Enterprise that sits on the Board of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), had a key speaking slot at the 2013 Open Networking Summit in the “Software Defined Networking (SDN) for Enterprises” session. Steve Schwartz, global head of Telecommunications and Market Data Services at GS, gave the presentation. Highlights from this session include:
Bruce Davie, former Cisco Distinguished Engineer and now Principal Engineer in the Networking & Security Division of VMware via Nicira, did a pretty good job at confusing the audience this week at the Open Networking Summit (ONS) during his presentation. While most other presenters talked about Network Virtualization as an application of Software Defined Networking (SDN), Davie wanted to state repeatedly they are different and that network virtualization is possible without SDN. This is true, and unlike most vendors, he was actually trying not to SDN-wash. Shouldn’t that be a good thing?
Today marks the end of the first day at ONS 2013. You had a choice to attend one of two tutorial sessions: one for engineers and one for market opportunities. I chose to attend the engineering session mainly because I’ve done a lot of research around SDN and wanted some good quality time in front of the keyboard.
The session was comprised of hands-on labs and lectures. I recently had a good exchange with Brian Gracely after a comment I made on twitter in which I was asking where the industry is heading with more open source offerings being announced. His response to my question can be found here. Brian poses great questions to keep in mind as technologies and the related value chains continue to evolve. Think from product acquisition, testing, to production deployments and day 2 support. The value chain in IT could likely shift over the next few years, so it’s definitely worth the read. The response was not expected, so thank you to Brian. Very much appreciated. I’d encourage all to have a read.
What sort of insight should the physical network fabric offer network operators when it comes to deploying network virtualization? It is a great question and the answer is really going to vary based on who answers it. Martin Casado and co. recently voiced their perspective here. As always, Martin’s blogs are a great read and I encourage you to follow him at NetworkHeresy if you aren't already, although there haven’t been many posts since the Nicira acquisition. Looks like he is making it a community based blog going forward, so let’s hope to see more soon.
We know virtualization, server and network, offer a means of abstracting the underlying physical hardware. Once the hardware is abstracted though, how much visibility should there be into the virtual networks or virtual servers? Have you heard of OpenFlow? Have you heard of vPath? Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking about how they are related to each other when it comes to, yup, you guessed it --- Software Defined Networking (SDN).
OpenFlow is one of the most widely talked about protocols in the world of SDN. It is simply an *open* protocol that enables the separation of the control and data planes of a network device. Most commonly, it is a protocol used between a controller and physical/virtual switch to remotely program device forwarding tables. vPath on the other hand, isn’t as popular (yet?) and rarely discussed in SDN conversations, so what is it? With only one week until Open Networking Summit (ONS) 2013, the announcements have started. The first is not a vendor announcement, but an industry announcement. It is the coming out party of industry wide open source project, OpenDaylight. There have been rumors about OpenDaylight for a few weeks now, so it is good to finally see what it is all about.
The idea behind OpenDaylight is simple. To move the industry forward toward next generation (software defined) networks. That sounds like the ONF a bit, but maybe their play is still to focus on standard APIs --- not sure, but look forward to an announcement from the ONF as well. Cisco wants to empower the network engineer, just like Embrane, to deploy virtual network services. But it’s not easy due to servers, virtualization, virtual networking, and flat out fear to not run big specialized boxes. Cisco has the Nexus 1110 that can run multiple Cisco virtual services such as VSM, VSG, etc. However, there are limitations on quantities and what particular services can be run on the 1110. Cisco cannot create a pool of 1110s and deploy virtual resources dynamically. There is a GUI manager, but not a hypervisor-like manager. The Nexus 1110 is a physical server running a Cisco modified hypervisor. This hypervisor doesn't seem to be off the shelf.
Post Update 6/26/2013: Think about deploying multiple virtual firewalls, load balancers, and other virtual services in a given environment. How do you know where to put a particular virtual FW (which physical host)? How do you know if it should be moved? How do you instantly deploy another FW VM based on a certain trigger? You may be thinking of vCenter as a comparison, but what I was referring to above was a hypervisor-like manager specifically built for network resources (services/VMs). It may be similar to an existing hypervisor in reality, but this one could be dedicated to the network team because we all know the Compute/Network teams will be independent for the foreseeable future. I wanted to do a post on different tools used to automate physical and virtual networks. They were going to include BMC Blade Logic Network Automation (BBNA), Cisco Network Services Manager (NSM), and vCloud Director. OpenStack may have found its way in there too. Note: Cisco NSM is the product of the LineSider acquisition.
The post was going to compare what each product calls its network construct. For example, in NSM network containers are defined, but in vCloud, External, Organization, and vApp networks are defined. Other tools refer to networks as domains and PODs. Trying to decipher what the next tool is going to call a basic Layer 2 segment will likely take even more time. Imagine trying to remember all of this? A few weeks ago I created a presentation in which the goal was to summarize “the what” and “the why” of SDN. After talking about the why (exaggerated by saying networks suck), I talked about “the what.” I broke down “the what” into four quadrants. These quadrants were Programmability, Controller Based Networking, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), and Overlays. The bottom half, NFV + Overlays, was really meant to capture the complete view of network virtualization. One can then accomplish network virtualization by using technology from the top 2 quadrants, i.e. leveraging a controller (that hopefully creates abstractions) with programmatic interfaces (north and southbound) that automates provisioning of L2-L7 network resources. Technology from each quadrant can be deployed individually or altogether.
I flew down to Florida last night to get back in the car at 5am this morning to drive back to Jersey with my grandmother. After just finishing the first shift driving which was about 4.5 hours, I figured it would be a. good time to write instead of dozing off.
There is a lot of SDN hype right now --- that is obvious. And it is way too early to tell who the big winners will be over the coming years. What we do know though is networking is changing. The skills that employers will want and need will likely be different. That is my opinion anyway. Not just in networking, but in IT. So as a network pro, where should you focus your time if you want to stay ahead of the game? In my previous post, Network Virtualization Part 1, I talked about some fundamental differences between server virtualization and network virtualization. The focus was how VMware created a hypervisor for server virtualization and how they created a network operating system for network virtualization. Now I will focus on some other properties that should be included in network virtualization --- to enable these properties could mean features and functions in both the virtual and physical networks.
This post compares high level concepts of server virtualization and network virtualization. There are benefits as we know them today for each, but it is just the beginning for network virtualization. The model we see in the future may very well be completely different than what it looks like today, but at the very least overlays will be around for quite some time given the amount of industry momentum. I’ll also give my thoughts and speculate on things I’d like to see from the vendors in this space.
In follow up posts, I hope to give more examples of how the physical network should adapt to help optimize the virtual network. I haven’t been blogging as much as I’d like – maybe that will always be the case. It’s hard finding the time with a day job and when each post takes planning, writing, editing, and proof reading. Going forward, I will try writing shorter posts. Hope this is the first of many that fits that build.
I find myself talking about SDN more and more referring to myself as SDN optimist insinuating there are many pessimists out there. Why do I sense that? I’m a network guy at heart and can’t imagine the past few years without reading about the future of networking and at the same time have learned a lot in other areas of the data center and IT. It’s time to start doing. That goes for all of us. Hopefully those that are “anti” realize controllers don’t have to be all that bad and they can benefit everyone – not just the large scale networks. Software Defined Networking is more than network virtualization in the data center. Virtual Networks can be deployed with or without programmability and/or central control. On top of that, we have these SDN principles of controller based networking, automation, programmability, overlays, and network slicing that can also be leveraged outside of the data center that very few are talking about. Look at multi-tenancy for business centers, hospitality, K-12, Higher Ed, MDUs, and even Sports Arenas. In the future, as SDN matures we’ll surely see these verticals as adopters in the Campus SDN market.
Check out my first blog @ TechTarget that goes into more detail on Campus based SDN: What makes SDN and network virtualization matter? Campus network apps I’ve read many of the predictions and trends that are expected to be seen in 2013. I’ve seen articles that say straight up 2013 will not be the year of SDN, but on the other hand, have read articles that say the complete opposite – that SDNs are already here and now the focus is on the applications to further drive adoption of Software Defined Networks. Who’s right? We’ll have to wait and see because there isn’t a right or wrong answer at this point.
If you do look at many of the predictions being made you’ll notice a few common themes that I tried to capture here: I was trying to prepare for a meeting a few weeks back on the topic of Hadoop; its impact on the network was supposed to be a large part of the conversation. Needless to say, it wasn’t, but during the preparation, I was looking for material specific to building and designing networks specific for Hadoop environments.
Since there aren’t that many articles out there on the subject, I figured I’d share what I was able to find. Pica8
Today, the industry officially welcomed another start up to the SDN world – Pica8. I’ve been following these guys for a while as they posted on their blog and before their merger with Pronto. At one point over a year ago, I even inquired about purchasing a Pronto Switch, but never pulled the trigger. Check out the original Pronto Systems web site here for more background and history on their solution, products, and testing. Pica8 + Open vSwitch In my last blog, I talked about Cisco’s Nexus 1000V, VMware’s VSS/VDS, and the Open vSwitch (OVS) as the three most deployed solutions for L2 virtual networking in the hypervisor. One interesting fact here is that Open vSwitch can actually run as the control stack on a hardware switch as well. Interesting? Definitely – considering the majority of conversations around SDN have focused around data center network virtualization. What’s the foundation of the next generation data center network, i.e. this thing some call the software defined virtual data center network? Many companies have recently re-branded their products and jumped on the Software Defined Networking (SDN) bandwagon in some way, shape, or form, and for good reason. It has the potential to truly change networking as we know it today. IDC has even stated SDN could be a $2B market by 2016.
Let’s forget about all of this recent SDN washing and go back to virtual networking basics. Most of us by now know what a software switch is. It is also known as a vswitch or virtual switch. This is arguably the most critical piece of real estate in the next generation data center network. So, who owns this property? Not much time to blog about this today, so this will be short, but another nice move for Cisco by announcing the acquisition of Cariden. This is being seen by most as a great SP SDN play for Cisco, which indeed it is. But remember, Service Providers have complex requirements, usually much more complex than Enterprises. This means Enterprises may only need a portion of the Cariden solution to start dabbling in SDN that is available today, not in 6 months or not in 2 years. So yes, Cariden was acquired for $141M and they do in fact have shipping products today, which is rare in the new and upcoming SDN community. With that said, please note that Cariden had also announced integration with Big Switch’s Floodlight open source controller targeted at Enterprises. With Enterprises potentially only needing a subset of Cariden’s actual feature set, I’m sure we may now see portions of Cariden’s application suite integrated as northbound applications riding on top of Cisco’s ONE SDN controller that is coming sometime next year letting Cisco provide an end to end solution potentially equivalent to the one Google announced last year at ONS.
How quick can you close a $1.2B dollar deal? Supposedly it took Cisco and Meraki just four days. “…they moved at lightning speed to get the deal done. Within four days, we had a handshake agreement with Cisco. They drove a fair bargain.” – Doug Leone, Sequoia Capital
Just over a year ago, I had my first encounter with Meraki. Thanks to the Wireless Tech Field Day team, I was able to watch many of the sessions live from home. Luckily, Meraki was one of them I got to see. After learning a little bit about what Meraki was doing, it never seemed like rocket science, but it still seemed like magic. They solved arguably the biggest problem in networking today – network management with a focus on the Campus. |
AuthorJason Edelman, Founder & CTO of Network to Code. Categories
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