OpenFlow and Software Defined Networking

presented by Greg Ferro

What is OpenFlow

would like to thank Greg Ferro and Ivan Pepelnjak for giving us the opportunity to sponsor to this educational webinar on OpenFlow and SDN, technologies core to our offering. More information at: www.bigswitch.com

Contact us at: contact@bigswitch.com

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OPENFLOW - WHAT
Look at OpenFlow from a engineer perspective From the bottom to the top Look at HOW OpenFlow works and then WHY we want to that Once we understand OpenFlow, we can consider Software Defined Networking in the second half
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THE PLAN
Introduction to OpenFlow Break Software Defined Network Demo Questions

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WHAT IS OPENFLOW
Engineering Level

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PLANES OF OPERATION
CLI/SSH/SNMP/XML OSPF/BGP/LDP
CO NT

MANAGEMENT PLANE

Network devices considered to have three planes of operation Control, Management and Forwarding or Data Planes

FORWARDING PLANE

RO

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FORWARDING

?
FORWARDING PLANE

FORWARDING TABLES
Forwarding Tables = Forwarding Information Base = FIB

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HOW ROUTING BECOMES FORWARDNG

RI B

RI

RI

RI B

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Routing R Protocol

IB

ROUTING PROTOCOLS
Routing R Protocol

Routing R Protocol

IB

Routing R Protocol

IB

IB

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SO FAR SO GOOD
Let me ask, are Routing protocols good enough ? Is OSPF/BGP the only way to map paths through the network ? Are there other options ? Are they BETTER ?

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ROUTING PROTOCOLS - GOOD?

reliable proven deterministic ( knowable / predictable ) self healing (around network failures) autonomous scalable ?
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NOT SO GOOD
loosely coupled, hop by hop homogenous system change resistant limited external configuration metrics notload based / adaptive eventual consistency poor multipath ability forwarding by destination address only drop traffic during reconvergence

Are current protocols good enough ?

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WHAT IF, INSTEAD OF Routing R Protocol

IB

Routing R Protocol

IB

Routing R Protocol

IB

Routing protocols populates RIB RIB populates FIB FIB forwards packets/frames

Routing R Protocol

IB

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WHAT IF WE DID THIS ?

use an external device to update the forwarding tables (FIB) on routers and switches

Controller

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FIBS ARE BUILT FROM RIBS

Router Router Router

Routing Table = Routing Information Base. Many routes to a destination. Only best route / valid route is loaded into FIB

Routing Table

Device Control Plane

Forwarding Table Device Forwarding Plane

FIB = Forwarding Information Base Contains Layer 2 encapsulation data for next hop

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DEVICE ARCHITECTURE
Network Device
Control Plane Management Data Path / Forwarding

Typical device architecture today. Complex software in BGP/LDP/OSPF/ Multicast etc Simplified Device Architecture of this, changes to .....
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DEVICE ARCHITECTURE
OpenFlow Controller OpenFlow Client Device Firmware Management

In a pure OpenFlow device, the OS is minimal. Only chip firmware and simple device management functions are included. Complexity moves to the controller/ SDN layer.

Data Path / Forwarding

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DEVICE ARCHITECTURE
OpenFlow Controller OpenFlow Client Network OS Management STP/ OSPF / BGP Neighbors

But a device could also maintain protocols AND have OpenFLow support More on this later...

Data Path / Forwarding

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NETWORK OPERATING SYSTEMS

The Device Operating System handles all device operations such as Boot, Flash, Memory Management, TCAM, OpenFlow Protocol handler, SNMP agent and so on. Consider a device with no OSPF, Multicast, BGP, STP, MAC address tables, VLAN tagging, LDP....... Or a device without code bloat, only what you need. Smaller code = less bugs, less resources, less cost.
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DEVIATION:ROUTING OR SWITCHING?
If a device has a forwarding a table that forwards Ethernet frames that encapsulate IP packets Is it a router or a switch ? Answer: ?

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SWITCH PATH
IN 1 VLAN P1 10 VLAN 50 P2 P4 TRUNK 2
DST | PORT DST | PORT DST | PORT

4 TRUNK P4
DST | PORT DST | PORT DST | PORT DST | PORT

P1 5

VLAN 10

VLAN P2 50 P3 VLAN 10 OUT 6

VLAN Tag added

VLAN P3 10

DST | PORT

DST MAC forwarding

Frame Received by input process. Destination Address Lookup in Forwarding 33 Table Forwarding Entry Age Checked. Output Interface Valid Frame Checksummed, dispatched to output process

FLOW FORWARDING
IN P1 1 P4 P4 P1

P2
OF

OF OF 2 OF OF

P2 OUT P3

P3

OF OF OF

OpenFlow Table Lookup

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DEVIATION: ROUTING OR SWITCHING?

Switching = forwarding by destination MAC Routing = forwarding by destination IP Flow Forwarding by flow rule ( CEF ? )
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BEING IVAN ABOUT IT

xt Te

switching vs bridging. switching= L2 switching, L3 switching or L4 switching.

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xt Te

CONTROLLERS

BRIEF VERSION

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ON CONTROLLERS THEN
its software, its an application (appliance) connectivity to all network devices builds a network topology in memory. runs an algorithm then updates the Forwarding table by an API using the OpenFlow protocol. Similarities to Stack Master, Cisco supervisors, XRE in QFabric are valid.
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'OpenFlow' Controller

CONTROLLERS

UI

Network Model Controller

OpenFlow

Network

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CONTROLLERS
Thinking / Ruminating ? Could use a Shortest Path First algorithm to produce the same pathing as OSPF Could run BGP to interoperate with other networks (more on this later) as a route server Lots more on controllers in the second half
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You can find more information about our company and our offering at www.bigswitch.com Our open source solutions are posted at www.openflowhub.org If you have any further question please do not hesitate to contact us at: contact@bigswitch.com

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THANKS
http://packetpushers.net http://www.bigswitch.com http://ipspace.net

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