The traditional way of designing and procuring hyper-scale networks has been seen almost as an outmoded concept since the advent of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) but the key part of this wave, the use of open source operating systems for network switches and routers, is allowing a real “sea-change” in the industry.
Why Is Open Source Attractive to the Enterprise?
The Capex
budgets required for network infrastructure
can be reduced dramatically, with cost-savings
of 20-50% often quoted but also the
time-to-rollout for new network projects can
be markedly shortened, once the approaches are
understood and adopted. Automation techniques
with standards such as OpenStack, allowing
workflows to be pre-defined for often-used
network topologies, are also further widening
these gaps to the ‘old world’ network.
It’s for these reasons that the adoption of
Open Source Networking is now becoming part of
Enterprise-scale deployments and ‘tech-savvy’
organizations are moving to the new, open
approach.
Where did SDN Originate?
It’s possible to trace the ‘DNA’ of SDN right back to a project called Ethane at Stanford University pre-2008. This was aimed at Enterprise networks and was formulated to separate the control plane and forwarding plane of network devices, allowing simpler infrastructure to be used in conjunction with centralized command and control for network policies.
This work produced the OpenFlow protocol and an associated API and in 2010 a collaboration between Rackspace and NASA produced OpenStack, the open source Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) standard for cloud computing. This platform includes definitions for storage, compute and networking (the latter being covered by OpenStack’s Neutron element), for IP addressing, VLAN definition etc and support for Open vSwitch (OVS) – a virtualized network switch. Plug-in support for Neutron has evolved to include support for hardware vendors such as Cisco and Mellanox.
Pressure was also notably applied by the Service Provider community to reduce the money they spent with internetworking hardware vendors and the time it took to bring projects into production. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) proposed as early as 2004, the Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) standard. The culmination of this and research work in academia produced deployments of SDN by companies like Google and the formation of the Open Network Foundation (ONF) in 2011 and the OpenDaylight project in 2013, by the Linux Foundation.
Why Hasn’t This Happened Sooner?
So, the benefits of open source networking are well understood by service providers and cloud providers, but there has been a slower uptake amongst enterprises. Interestingly, a large percentage of these enterprises use cloud services which run open source technologies for their off-premises services. This makes it clear that enterprise IT managers should consider moving to open source networking, for all the cost savings, the speed and agility of deployment, and the programmability that it offers. It may have always been easier for network teams to continue with traditional closed source network hardware vendors but an openness to adopt a newer approach can really provide benefits to the businesses and organizations that are loking at network renewal in the near future.
What our customers say
As an educational establishment on three sites, with both boarding and day pupils, it is essential that our IT systems provide the users with all that they need across education, marketing, finance, external visitors to the sites and Charity Services.
With such a large demand there has, over time, been inevitable conflicts and ill-feeling created. activereach have given us the support, knowledge and guidance to improve our structures and systems in order that the user has the best possible service. Significant progress has been made thanks to the team at activereach. We are not at the final solution, but a more cohesive team approach is developing.
Executive Director of Education & Operations, Licenced Trade Charity
