When the concept of software-defined networking (SDN) was first mooted, the IT industry embraced this new approach to designing, building and managing networks. One of the key reasons behind SDN's immediate popularity was its promise of programmable, centralised network control.
SDN's open source approach was seen as a platform on which significantly improved levels of functionality, flexibility and adaptability for the network of the future could be built.
Technically, the SDN method centralises control of the network by separating the control and forwarding planes. In essence, SDN controllers offer a centralised view of the overall network, which enables network administrators to dictate to the underlying systems (such as switches and routers) how the forwarding plane should handle network traffic.
Today, SDN and network functions virtualisation (NFV) - a complementary technology - represent the forefront of innovation, revolutionising networking by allowing switches/routers to be virtualised along with storage and other computing resources. Virtualisation allows all resources - including transport resources - to be dynamically allocated under the supervision of a centralised control system.
What's your flavour?
While a number of vendors have climbed aboard and brought SDN-based products and technologies to market, it hasn't been plain-sailing for SDN devotees. The myriad variants of SDN now flooding the market are, ironically, proving counterproductive, and are causing SDN and NFV to fall short of their original targets in the eyes of many industry watchers.
This is because the various flavours of SDN available from vendors are combining to present a number of extremely 'closed' ecosystems.
As a result, the benefits of an open, reference framework for programmability and control through an open source SDN and NFV solution are not being realised; nor are the advantages of other proposed objectives, such as enhanced security, increased network utilisation and improved deployment and management functionality.
For example, one of the big draw cards for SDN was the potential to have a commodity-based network switch - any vendor's brand - with an SDN 'engine' on top of the switch. This would obviate vendor 'lock-in' and the perpetuation of proprietary systems. Unfortunately, vendor lock-in is still very much in evidence, based on the particular switch selected and the flavour of SDN with which it is shipped.
Vendor lock-in is still very much in evidence.
What's needed is a framework that gives users the flexibility to deploy SDN and NFV as they please - with switches and other components from a vendor of their choice. This should be achieved while mitigating many of the risks associated with early adoption and addressing issues linked to more efficient migration and interoperability with existing infrastructure investments.
Daylight savings
Is OpenDaylight such a framework?
The OpenDaylight Project (ODP) is a community-led and industry-supported open source initiative that has actively and aggressively promoted the advance of SDN and NFV. Its goals are to see SDN philosophies encompass entire networks, with orchestration in the form of governance structures enabling its drivers to reside either in the cloud or on-premises.
One of the ODP's main objectives is to bring to market an open, common framework and platform for SDN and NFV spanning the industry for customers, partners and developers.
Establishing an open source project in this way is bound to help accelerate the development of technologies available to users and enable widespread adoption of SDN, while creating a solid foundation for NFV.
From a marketing perspective, this is becoming critical as many organisations are preparing for network modernisation, driven by demands to be more agile, responsive, competitive and cost-effective, with less over-provisioning in terms of expensive network resources.
Significantly, OpenDaylight can play a central role. For instance, the idea of an open source SDN and NFV controller will help companies reduce operational complexity, extend the life of their existing infrastructure hardware and facilitate the adoption of new services and capabilities.
In the future, opportunities for shared SDN- and NFV-based infrastructures could abound and form the core of any number of collaboration initiatives in almost every industrial sector.
Should the emerging 'open mentality' as espoused by OpenDaylight become all-pervasive, it will signal a return to the successful, collaboration-style era of computing characteristic of the early 1980s and the level playing field so earnestly sought since then.
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