SDN Vendorscape
January 2015, CSG
SDN vendors
 There is a lot of activity in this space with many choices.
 Most vendors claim their hardware/software can be introduced
gradually into the network without disruption.
 Most products or services are designed for data center
optimizations – with attention just now shifting to the WAN.
 ISPs are embracing network virtualization, optimization and
automation features so vendors are delivering products and
services that will do this.
 If you go to SNxCentral, you’ll see a large list of SDN vendors.
 This presentation is focused on those that provide SDN
switches, and is by no means a complete list or discussion of
the “Vendorscape”.
Quick comparisons
ONF
ODL
OF ver.
Alcatel
Yes
No
1.0, 1.3
Arista
Yes
Yes
1.0
Brocade
Yes
Yes*
Cisco
Yes
Dell
Open
APIs
40G
100G
Hybrid
Mode
Control
ler
Yes
No?
Yes
Yes
Yes?
1.0, 1.3
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes*
1.0
NR
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes*
1.0, 1.3~ Yes
Yes
No
Extreme
Yes
Yes
1.0, 1.3
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HP
Yes
Yes*
1.0, 1.3
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No?
Juniper
Yes
Yes*
1.0
?
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
NEC
Yes
Yes
1.0, 1.3
?
Yes
No?
Yes?
Yes
Noviflow
Yes
No
1.3
Yes
No
?
No
Corsa
Yes
No
1.3
Yes
?
Yes
No?
No
Alcatel-Lucent
 Has what they call a “coordinated virtual infrastructure.
 Virtualizes routers for NFV.
 Opened 3 Bell Labs focused on Cloud and SDN
 Partners with Nuage Networks
 Working on SDN for optical devices as well as typical
switches and routers.
 Clearpass policy manager does access management.
 Agnostic on controllers
 One use case cited is to be able to prioritize capacity to
reduce/remove jitter and latency for elephant flows.
Arista
 Arista’s EOS supports OpenFlow 1.0.
 Focus on software-driven cloud networking.
 VXLAN Multi-vendor SDN for Network Virutalization
 Open APIs
Brocade
 The Vyatta Controller, the first commercial Controller built
directly from OpenDaylight code unveiled in 2014, allows
users to freely optimize their network infrastructure to
address the needs of their specific workloads. Also Vyatta
router (software) based on Linux/Redhat model.
 Vyatta router is built in software.
 OpenFlow in hybrid port mode (as opposed to just hybrid
mode).
 Brocade-Cienna joint solution for “elastic cloud bursting”.
 Says there were over 3,000 stories last year of SDN use
cases with their switches.
 Brocade-Aruba partnership for wireless implementation.
 Bandwidth metering available in OpenFlow 1.3.
Cisco
 Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) capable of managing
the entire data center with a desire to work with numerous
partners in their “open ecosystem”.
 OpFlex submitted as IETF draft.
 Goldman Sachs report says Cisco’s ACI provides a 3x better
total cost of ownership than Vmware NSX
 Partners: Embrane (Elastic Services Manager)
 Buyouts: Tail-f (cloud orchestration); Metacloud (OpenStack
cloud provider)
 Joins Open Compute Project
 Controller based on OpenDaylight.
Dell
 Fabric switch and controller designed to scale and automate
OpenStack clouds,
 Believes that adding third-party networking software on its
switch hardware increases the value of its products.
 OpenFlow 1.3 (partial), is willing to activate various features
of 1.3 if there is interest.
 Real Use Case: Data Center Bridging (DCB) capable switch
with multi-hop DCB and a lossless environment.
 Founding members of ONOS, upgraded membership in
OpenDaylight, involved in standards creation.
 Partners with Cumulus and with SwitchLight (Big Switch),
relationship with Redhat and OpenStack
 OpenGENI racks.
Extreme Networks
 Extreme Networks’ SDN platform is based on a hardened
OpenDaylight (ODL) controller that includes network
management, network access control, application analytics
and wireless controller technology.
 Approach preserves the integrity of the open API provided by
ODL while extending data center orchestration, automation
and provisioning to the entire network under “a single pane of
glass.”
 Sees software replacing hardware and appliances giving way
to software APIs.
HP
 Built upon its core strategy which is based on open
standards, HP provides open standards underlay and overlay
technologies such as OpenFlow and Virtual Extensible LAN
(VXLAN).
 OpenFlow-enabled switches (17 model families)
 Last year raised investment in OpenDaylight and open
source SDNs.
 Controller compliant with OpenFlow 1.0 and 1.3, open APIs.
 Creates industry’s first SDN app store.
 Hyperglance, Bluecat DNS Director, Load Balancer, Network
Optimizer, Network Protector
Juniper
 Expanded carrier SDN portfolio, controller, management
products
 Accepts OpenDaylight and develops plugin to link its
OpenContrail SDN controller to the open source code.
 Virtualizes routers for Network Functions Virtualization
(NFV).
 Unveils Junos for Open Compute Platform leading to
disaggregation strategy to appeal to white box customers.
 Flexible deployment options allow implementation to be
started anywhere in the network with the ability to grow and
evolve over time.
 OpenContrail vs. OpenDaylight?
Plexxi
 Designed for the data center space, they claim to have
provided the first SDN-based Ethernet switch. They also
have a controller,
 An SDN startup, it weds its controller and the photonic
switching environment to build an optical topology that fits the
network requirements.
 SolidFire
New vendors to consider
 Both from Canada, two vendors have fully implemented
OpenFlow 1.3 on their products and both belong to the Open
Networking Foundation
 Corsa – working with Energy Sciences Network, their data
plane product can support millions of flows and multiple flow
tables. Tagline “SDN Done Right”. Can do 100Gig.
 Noviflow – application aware switching fabric, up to 200 Gbps
of OpenFlow throughput, supporting 1 million flow entries,
OpenFlow 1.3 complete spec implemented. 100Gig not available
yet.
Big Switch Networks
 OpenFlow-capable network apps – Big Tap Monitoring, Big
Cloud Fabric
 Cloud Fabric controller
 Exchanged Vmware/Nicira strategy for Cisco ACI
 Tagline – “Bare Metal SDN”
 Partners: Dell
 Other alliances: A10, Acton, Blue Coat, F5, Blue Data,
Broadcom, Canonical, Checkpoint, Citrix, Edgecore, Fireeye,
Fortinent, Garland, Hillstone, Hortonworks, Infoblox, IW
Networks, Microsoft, Mirantis, Nexenta, Quanta, Redhat,
Riverbed, Telechemy
Pluribus Networks
 Pluribus Networks unique converged architecture fuses
compute, storage, switching, and network virtualization.
 Network Hypervisor product
 Partners with: Fortinet, Supermicro, TIBCO, SanDisk, Intel,
Redhat, Coraid, Oracle
VMWare
 Software Defined Data Center
 Partners: Palo Alto Networks (firewalls)
 Several products capable of SDN, vSphere, VCloud Suite,
VCloud Air, etc.
 VMWare NSX is their network virtualization platform for their
software defined data center.
Survey
Would it be useful to send out a survey to a variety of vendors?
View https://jfe.qualtrics.com/preview/SV_bm6MloRmIeA6Zcp
Or ask me for a PDF version of the draft survey.
Would the CSG want to include just switch vendors or should
other vendors such as cloud and data center vendors be
included as well?
Further info
 ECAR published a paper, “The Promise and Reality of SDN”,
in December that has useful links and information.
 See http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/promiseand-reality-sdn
 Or drop me an email: celestea@usc.edu
 Thanks!