Comments on: OpenFlow and software defined networks are here. Now what?

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 01:33:31 +0000

Their days are numbered? Not quite. Who do you think will be building the new hardware?

And by the way, there is no longer such a thing as centralization which isn’t at the same time distributed. You need to think a little harder about the problem at hand.

By: Jim Crawford

Jim Crawford — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 11:55:53 +0000

Interesting point by anonymous “guest” on the inherent risks and unknown pitfalls of centralization. On the other hand, the risks of the current Internet economic model are well-known: increased demand for network hardware investment to keep pace with unquenchable public demand for broadband.

One of the chief benefits of OpenFlow, in layman’s terms: It’s a lot cheaper. Hardware manufacturers who’ve grown fat & happy on the current Internet model may not like it, but their days — or at least the days of many of them — are numbered once SDN hits the streets.

By: jdmamba

jdmamba — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:42:51 +0000

Reblogged this on applicationspeeds.

By: jdmamba

jdmamba — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:34:02 +0000

Great article! Reblogging–if you don’t mind.

By: Plexxi Inc

Plexxi Inc — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:33:25 +0000

Great read, Alex. I agree that the networking industry has been starving for the next big thing for quite some time now. And, with all the focus on SDN and OpenFlow, we’re starting to have a much needed dialogue about the problem. However, I’m not convinced they are the solutions the industry needs, but more a means to an end (rather than the end in itself). I recently wrote a blog post on this very topic. If you’re interested, I encourage you to check it out: http://bit.ly/Jffjf3

Best,
Mat Mathews
Plexxi
VP, Product Management

By: Michael P.

Michael P. — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:52:10 +0000

Shouldn’t an article that mentions whitebox network vendors authored by a principal at Battery Venture disclose their investment in Cumulus Networks?

http://www.battery.com/portfolio/cumulus.html
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/google-microsoft-network-gear/

By: Alex Benik

Alex Benik — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:29:07 +0000

Actually I very much agree with you. Distributed routing protocols have allowed the internet to scale incredibly well and are not going away. Even with centralized TE, traditional protocols do a great job filling those pipes and detecting failures, as you point out. They are not going away.

By: Keith Townsend

Keith Townsend — Mon, 07 May 2012 03:43:05 +0000

I’m sure someone has written a book on this but a question that I ask myself is why is this so? Why has the Operating System and programming languages been able to create the abstractions that make these complex systems simpler to comprehend and develop even more complex applications around.

Networking isn’t any more mature than these other areas. I believe we’ve had a “keep the lights on” mentality to growing the network. This is why IPv4 is still around. It’s a difficult problem to solve reliably and the impact affects all systems connected to the network.

That’s why I’m glad to see a company like Google is putting Openflow into their production network. I get the impression they know how to solve hard problems.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 07 May 2012 01:07:34 +0000

It is quite easy to forget the 25+ years of innovation in routing protocols – that run the whole Internet today – without which the likes of Facebook & Google would be non-existent.
Distributed routing and decision making in optimization has some very elegant properties and allow for things like convergence and scale.
Centralizing such computation has inherent risks and unknown pitfalls that are yet to be understood or even discovered. It would be very delusional to suggest and even implement things like protocols in centralized openflow like controllers and expect them to scale well and converge quickly – all essential for a constantly changing and evolving network. The ramifications of these have to be well understood.
Every so often – we go through these cycles of getting enamored with new concepts and ideas – but some fundamentals are generally invariant. Folks are clearly discovering that is only so much one can do with these controllers – and as they unravel more of the operational needs – it is becoming clear that one ends up re-implementing software that runs today’s internet!!

By: Keith Townsend

Keith Townsend — Sun, 06 May 2012 16:36:18 +0000

Reblogged this on Virtualized Geek and commented:
I just listened to a talk from Berkeley professor Scott Shenker yesterday on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVs7Pc99S7w that gave an excellent breakdown of SDN and he spoke of the need of the Network Operating System before SDN’s can become a reality.

When I think about it, I’m rather amazed that we haven’t created an abstraction for the network. His talk speaks about how relatively easily we’ve done this at layer 2 but how difficult it is to do at higher layers due to the non-modular design of the network stack. Applications shouldn’t be making calls to the network address but rather to the network service.

Interesting stuff. OpenFlow is a step in the right direction to creating the “BIOS” that we need. I’m especially happy that Google is at the bleeding edge of this in a production network.