ppt

Software
-
defined Networks

October 2009

With Martin Casado and Scott Shenker

And contributions from many others


Outline

Trends

–
Towards “Software
-
defined Network”

–
Towards “Slicing” of network infrastructure

–
Government role


Million of lines

of source code

5400 RFCs

Barrier to entry

500M gates

10Gbytes RAM

Bloated

Power Hungry

Many complex functions baked into the infrastructure

OSPF, BGP, multicast, differentiated services,

Traffic Engineering, NAT, firewalls, MPLS, redundant layers, …


An industry with a “mainframe
-
mentality”


We have lost our way

Specialized Packet
Forwarding Hardware

Operating

System

App

App

App

Routing, management, mobility management,

access control, VPNs, …

Operating System

Reality

App

App

App

Specialized Packet
Forwarding Hardware

Specialized Packet
Forwarding Hardware

Operating

System

App

App

App

•

Lack of competition means glacial innovation

•

Closed architecture means blurry, closed interfaces

Glacial process of innovation made
worse by captive standards process

Deployment

Idea

Standardize

Wait 10 years

•
Driven by vendors

•
Consumers largely locked out

•
Lowest common denominator features

•
Glacial innovation

Specialized Packet
Forwarding Hardware

Ap
p

Ap
p

Ap
p

Specialized Packet
Forwarding Hardware

Ap
p

Ap
p

Ap
p

Specialized Packet
Forwarding Hardware

Ap
p

Ap
p

Ap
p

Specialized Packet
Forwarding Hardware

Ap
p

Ap
p

Ap
p

Specialized Packet
Forwarding Hardware

Operating

System

Operating

System

Operating

System

Operating

System

Operating

System

Ap
p

Ap
p

Ap
p

Network Operating System

App

App

App

Change is happening in non
-
traditional markets


App

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

App

App

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

Network Operating System

1. Open interface to hardware

3. Well
-
defined open API

2. At least one good operating system

Extensible, possibly open
-
source

The “Software
-
defined Network”


Slicing the physical network

Simple Packet

Forwarding Hardware

Network
Operating
System 1

Open interface to hardware

Virtualization or “Slicing” Layer

Network
Operating
System 2

Network
Operating
System 3

Network
Operating
System 4

App

App

App

App

App

App

App

App

Many operating systems, or

Many versions

Open interface to hardware

Isolated “slices”

Simple Packet

Forwarding Hardware

Simple Packet

Forwarding Hardware

Simple Packet

Forwarding Hardware

Simple Packet

Forwarding Hardware

Consequences

More innovation in network services

–
Owners, operators, 3
rd

party developers,
researchers can improve the network

–
E.g. energy management, data center
management, policy routing, access control,
denial of service, mobility

Lower barrier to entry for competition

–
Healthier market place, new players

Is change likely?

The change has already started

In a nutshell

–
Driven by
cost
and
control

–
Started in data centers…. and may spread

–
Trend is towards an
open
-
source
,

software
-
defined

network


–
Growing interest for cellular and telecom networks


Example: New Data Center

Cost

200,000 servers

Fanout of 20
a

10,000 switches

$5k commercial switch
a

$50M

$1k custom
-
built switch
a

$10M


Savings in 10 data centers =
$400M


Control


1.
Optimize for features needed

2.
Customize for services & apps

3.
Quickly improve and innovate

Large data center operators are moving towards defining their own network in software.

Windows

(OS)

Windows

(OS)

Linux

Mac

OS

x86

(Computer)

Windows

(OS)

App

App

Linux

Linux

Mac

OS

Mac

OS

Virtualization layer

App

Controller 1

App

App

Controller

2

Virtualization or “Slicing”

App

OpenFlow

Controller 1

NOX

(Network OS)

Controller

2

Network OS

Trend

Computer Industry

Network Industry

How can government help?

What NSF is supporting

Trials of “Software
-
defined Network” & OpenFlow


US College Campus Trials

–
UW, Georgia Tech, Princeton, Rutgers,

UW
-
Madison, Clemson, Indiana, Stanford

–
Vendors with prototype OpenFlow:

Cisco, Juniper, HP, NEC, Ciena, Arista, Quanta, ….


National College Backbone Trials


Data Center Clusters (with Google, Yahoo!, HP, etc.)


UW

Stanford

Univ

Wisconsin

Indiana

Univ

Rutgers

Princeton

Clemson

Georgia

Tech

Internet2

NLR

Nationwide OpenFlow Trials

Production deployments

before end of 2010

The role of government

When funding new infrastructure

–
Mandate open interface to equipment (OpenFlow)

–
Recommend trials of “software
-
defined networks”


Risk


Invest in the wrong equipment, and we are
stuck with “same old” equipment for 10 years

App

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

App

App

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

Simple Packet
Forwarding
Hardware

Network Operating System

Software
-
defined
Wireless

Networks

Applies equally to wireless networks



Mobility manager, AAA, billing,

MVNO, Wireless service provider, …

WiFi, WiMAX, LTE

Outline

Trends

–
Towards “Software
-
defined Network”

–
Towards “Slicing” of network infrastructure

–
Government role


Dream

–
Making available the abundant wireless capacity
around us

–
Technical trend

–
Business hurdles

Observations

•
We are not short of wireless capacity: It is
abundant, but off limits

•
Cell phone today = 6 radios

•
Cell phone in 2020 = 20 radios?


Can we:

–
Decouple service providers from physical
networks?

–
Allow user to decide to connect to any or many
wireless networks simultaneously?

WiFi AP

WiFi AP

WiFi AP

WiMAX

LTE

WiMAX

LTE

LTE

WiFi AP

My Employer

A home

Nationwide infrastructure owners

Service providers in cloud

Slicing

Slicing

Slicing

Slicing

Open flow
-
based interface

App

App

App

App

App

App

“Newco”

OS

“Vodafone”

OS

“AT&T”

OS

Services

Services

Services

Service Providers and Infrastructure

Thank you!