OpenFlow Emerging
Cameron Sturdevant is the executive editor of Enterprise Networking Planet. Prior to ENP, Cameron was technical analyst at PCWeek Labs, starting in 1997. Cameron finished up as the eWEEK Labs Technical Director in 2012. Before his extensive labs tenure Cameron paid his IT dues working in technical support and sales engineering at a software publishing firm . Cameron also spent two years with a database development firm, integrating applications with mainframe legacy programs. Cameron's areas of expertise include virtual and physical IT infrastructure, cloud computing, enterprise networking and mobility. In addition to reviews, Cameron has covered monolithic enterprise management systems throughout their lifecycles, providing the eWEEK reader with all-important history and context. Cameron takes special care in cultivating his IT manager contacts, to ensure that his analysis is grounded in real-world concern. Follow Cameron on Twitter at csturdevant, or reach him by email at cameron.sturdevant@quinstreet.com.
Email
Print
Start at openflow.org to get a handle on the spec. It's a relatively short document.
The virtual network overlay technology called OpenFlow is popping up more and more in my virtual world. OpenFlow is a part of the networking technology baked into XenServer 6 beta 2 "Project Boston." I've just set up a meeting with Big Switch to talk about their OpenFlow. My friends at the Internet Research Group have published a research paper on OpenFlow. And during my recent briefing at Cisco on the Nexus 7000, there was a professional-yet-stifled reaction when I mentioned OpenFlow. Yes, Cisco is on the advisory board, no, there aren't announced plans for implementing the technology.
Software defined networks, of which OpenFlow is an example, seek to accommodate the impact of x86 virtualization on the underlying physical network. Where before networks could be engineered and then frozen in place, now they must accept the fact that workloads can be mobile and may shift location.
Over the next several weeks I'll be talking with OpenFlow experimenters and implementers in the hopes of shedding light on what the issues that IT managers must take into account as they make strategic design decisions for the next 3-5 years.
It's clear that simply designing networks in the manner of "second verse, just like the first" has come to a breaking point. With Cisco, HP, Juniper, Brocade and others releasing various fabrics, to the Gartner report that challenged the presumptive superiority of single vendor networks, to the widescale implementation of virtual switches, networking is undergoing a rapid evolution. Getting a handle on OpenFlow will help network managers stay a couple of steps ahead of this fast changing scene.
