Software-Defined Network (SDN) configuration is the way of the future, at least according to AT&T, who put out a call to academia and research institutions to help them reach their goal of virtualizing 75% of their network by 2020. They asked the question: “Which network routing method yields the best results, most efficiently and cost effectively?”
The challenge was to improve network routing, allowing a large network the flexibility to adapt depending on its current needs.
How Can an SDN Improve Network Routing?
As data is routed for different purposes over the network, software can allow a network administrator to reliably and capably control the flow of information independently, rather than through hardware changes and physical switches. This effectively separates a network’s control functions from its physical forwarding functions.
An SDN can make this process more efficient in cost and resource allocation, offers control of when and where bandwidth is needed, and assists in troubleshooting networks that are not only growing in size but also in complexity.
Engineering Student Team from Cornell Wins the Challenge
The best answer to AT&T’s challenge came from Cornell University’s six-member team, including associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Kevin Tang, a postdoctoral scholar and four graduate students. The team was awarded $50,000 and space for two students at the AT&T Labs summer internship.
While the end result was to show the best methods to route information through AT&T’s network, the team was encouraged to reach their practical design decisions by starting at the top.
“Through the process, the most notable thing we learned was the value of fundamental theory and how to realize that value,” said Tang. “At the university, we tend to study things in more general and idealized settings.”
Balancing Quality and Efficiency
Though an SDN needs to be flexible in its design, the team also had to overcome the balancing of quality and efficiency in their solution – rather than only solve one problem or the other, as is often the case in network design.
“As the growth of data continues to snowball due to trends like the Internet of Things and mobile data, the demand for a fast, efficient and flexible network increases exponentially,” Tang told AT&T’s Innovation Space Blog. “I believe that building software-centric networks based on breakthrough technologies, like the solution our team pioneered, satisfies this demand.”
AT&T is not just using design challenges to help develop their new technologies. They are also working with the open source community to find new ways to innovate their network architecture. The collaborative effort is led by Dr. Gagan Choudhury, lead inventive scientist at AT&T, who also organized the SDN competition.
For more information, check out the AT&T website or visit Cornell Engineering.