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SDN/NFV-Based Network Infrastructures
Software Defined Networking and Network Function Virtualization technologies promise more secure, manageable, scalable, low-cost, and vendor independent network architectures and rapid service introduction.
Over the last few decades, “all IP” systems received an increasing interest and demand. Fast and unrestrained growth of the Internet and it’s utilization caused various problems such as utilization inefficiency, security of information and difficulty in integrating new requirements. Additionally, constant increase in the demand for data access caused excessive CAPEX/OPEX for both commercial enterprises and public sector. Lately, two new technologies, SDN and NFV, emerged to promise more secure, manageable, scalable, low-cost, and vendor independent network architectures and rapid service introduction. SDN and NFV address the following key set of current network problems::
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
Software Defined Networking is an emerging networking paradigm, aiming to build more secure, manageable, scalable, low-cost and vendor independent network architectures. It is based on separation of data and control planes, where the control is consolidated in a – logically – centralized controller (a.k.a. NOS — Network Operating System). SDN brings elastic and easy management with enhanced monitoring capabilities to underlying networks, providing better utilization and cloudification for “networks as a service (NaaS)”.
SDN provides:
Future proof, extensively programmable, elastic yet secure network architecture
CAPES & OPEX reduction
Vendor independent systems (interoperability of whole ecosystem)
Traffic isolation
Inventive, enhanced and dense cyber security
Lower time-to-market for new functionalities
Decoupling network hardware and software
Bring your own device integration
Network Function Virtualization (NFV)
Network Function Virtualization is the technique to virtualize network functions and run them on standard servers, which are currently carried out by proprietary and dedicated hardware.
NFV provides:
Modular product architecture
Resource flexibility (capacity decrease/increase)
Reusability, effective management of resources
Fast time-to-market
Supports various installation scenarios
Argela’s SDN/NFV Experience
ARGELA has been working on SDN and NFV technologies since their emergence. Below are some highlights achieved from SDN and NFV research and development.
OPEN FLOW
ARGELA has been working on OpenFlow since the release of OpenFlow 1.0 in 2009 and was a member of ONF from 2009 to 2011. ARGELA has implemented all older OpenFlow versions and currently working on OpenFlow 1.5.1. The implemented OpenFlow stack has been tested with switches from various vendors, including Pronto, HP, NEC, Brocade, Centec, and Arista, as well as under the well-known MiniNet environment.
SDN CONTROLLERS
In addition to working with most open source SDN controllers, ARGELA has developed its own controller, namely yakamOS as well as various network applications on yakamOS. ARGELA SDN suite is a Network Access Control framework, which is built on top of yakamOS controller using OpenFlow 1.3.
Argela has experience with the following SDN controllers, for which it provides integration services and application development:
- Beacon
- Floodlight
- yakamOS
- ONOS
- OpenDaylight
SDN APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
ARGELA has experience in developing applications on top of SDN controllers. ARGELA’s yakamOS controller provides a northbound API for easy application development. The following applications, which are included in ARGELA SDN Suite, have been developed by ARGELA:
- Network monitoring and analytics
- Network topology discovery
- Traffic engineering
- Selective blocking
- Authentication (LDAP, 802.1X)
- Network virtualization (slicing, bandwidth allocation, optimized routing)
- QoS
VIRTUAL NETWORK FUNCTIONS
ARGELA participates in ETSI-NFV efforts and has contributed to the NFV Whitepaper 3 (Network Operator Perspectives on Industry Progress). We know the trends and specifications of ETSI-NFV and provides system integration services.
ARGELA has integrated SDN controller with OpenStack, and has experience with Docker and other containers, OpNFV and Arno.
ARGELA has experience in network function placement and virtual function migration/replacement as well as NFV management and orchestration systems.
ARGELA has developed the following virtual functions:
- Selective blocking
- Dynamic bandwidth allocation
- Authorization and authentication
- Server load balancing and route optimization
Multi-Domain SDN and the East-West interface
SDN domains consist of different content-providers and ISP networks, each managed by their own controller according to different policies. Every domain is considered as an autonomous system (AS).
Properties of the multi-domain SDN controller architecture proposed by ARGELA is as follows:
- Each SDN domain abstracts its network as a set of service-enabled paths, bundled with service-properties and advertises these to other domains.
- SDN domains are connected by inter-domain links.
- Each domain controller has a full control over traffic over its internal links.
- Each domain controller initiates QoS-enabled E2E path requests, based on the shared inter-domain virtual topology, and monitors the negotiated service guarantees.
- There is no external entity that manages E2E stitching of slices or service-enabled paths that the SDN domains provide.
Network Traffic Engineering
Since traffic diversity and volume increase with growing popularity of mobile applications, there is the strong need to manage the traffic carried by networks through bandwidth allocation, while enforcing policies and providing fault tolerance. In traditional networks, configuration changes require many resources (including time) and are error-prone, troubleshooting and recovering from failures take long, and management tools do not provide enough agility to “program” the network. Here SDN can simplify network management while enabling new services, by employing dynamic traffic management. ARGELA traffic engineering suite provides:
- Bandwidth reservation
- Dynamic bandwidth allocation
- Route optimization
- Power consumption by maximizing link utilization and shutting down redundant network equipment
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