In an interview with ThomasNet News, Arpit Joshipura, vice president for Dell in marketing and product management for the company’s networking division, said open networking follows a long-term trend that has seen the disaggregation of hardware and software in mainframes, personal computers, and servers. As technology vendors migrate to open systems, said Joshipura, “we let customers buy open hardware and put whatever software they want on it. Open networking does the same with networks.”
In 2011, a coalition of large IT companies that included Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Verizon, and Deutsche Telekom formed the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) to develop open standards for network architectures. The open networking initiative responds to trends such as cloud computing, Big Data, and “bring your own device” (BYOD), all of which are altering network traffic in ways that demand greater flexibility and control out of network operators.
Current networking models limit managers’ capabilities in such areas as implementing policies, adding and removing devices, scaling networks, and tailoring them to the needs of the enterprise. Because networking is so closely tied to proprietary vendor technologies, new features and changes are difficult and slow to implement.
The key capability being developed by the ONF and its members is software-defined networking (SDN). According to the ONF, SDN “decouples the network control and forwarding functions,” enabling a network “to become directly programmable and the underlying infrastructure to be abstracted for applications and network services.”
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In other words, by unlocking networking from the underlying hardware, SDN gives administrators greater control over network traffic so that it can be dynamically adjusted accordingly to changing needs. Because networking software is based on open standards, managers can write their own programs rather than remain beholden to proprietary technologies.
"Open networking will make networking part of computing," Dan Pitt, ONF’s executive director, told ThomasNet News, in a written response. He wrote that there are four series or stages of benefits to open networking:
- Lowering capital expense by replacement of proprietary, expensive network infrastructure with a less expensive, flexible, remotely programmable infrastructure
- Lowering operating expense by programmatic automation of network operation, while retaining many current network behaviors
- Making the network (and all of IT) truly an arm of organizational business strategy by driving the programming with business priorities and real-time needs
- Shedding the need for expertise (and investment) in IT infrastructure through more extensive use of cloud IT services so that the business can focus on the applications related to its core competence.
One of the crucial standards that ONF manages is OpenFlow, a communications protocol that allows direct control of the forwarding plane in network devices such as routers and switches. Older designs place both the data path (packet-switching) and the control path (high-level management of routing) on the networking device. OpenFlow separates the control path from the device, allowing managers to develop and deploy their own routing and switching protocols at the higher level.
Google reportedly now uses OpenFlow for control of its internally designed and built networking equipment. Stephen Levy wrote in Wired that SDN allows Google to “simulate everything offline with pinpoint accuracy, without having to access a single networking switch.” As a result, the company can roll out products faster. Since the control plane “is the element in routers that most often needs updating, networking equipment is simpler and enduring, requiring less labor to service,” he wrote.
According to Levy’s article, Urs Hölzle, senior vice president for technical infrastructure at Google, said that even though a network might be made up physically of devices, “you’re not really interested in the devices -- you’re interested in the fabric and the functions the network performs for you.” SDN, he said, means that “[n]ow we don’t have to worry about those devices -- we manage the network as an overall thing. The network just sort of understands.”
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This article was originally published on ThomasNet News Industry Market Trends and is reprinted in its entirety with permission from Thomas Industrial Network. For more stories like this please visit Industry Market Trends.