OpenFlow

HP OpenFlow capable firmware is now GA

Masa — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:16:27 +0000

OpenFlow capable firmware for HP switches is now available without requiring special license. It can be downloaded by customers/partners from HP’s website.

Current version is K.15.05.5001(for OpenFlow researchers only) as Early Availability and here is how I downloaded it:

Go to http://www.hp.com/networking/support
You will be required to sign-in to download the firmware. If you have your account, go to the next step. Otherwise, create it now and come back. To crate your account, place the mouse pointer over the “Sign-in” link on top right corner. Another menu pops up and click “Create new account” and follow the instruction.
In Auto Search text-box, type the part of the product name (e.g., 5400 or 6600)
Select appropriate product (check the check box)
Click “Display Selected” button
Click “software downloads” link (a bit hard to find.. look for light-blue link on the right side)
Find the proper firmware and click the link shown as “>>”. As of the timing of this blog post, “K.15.05.5001 (for OpenFlow researchers only)” in Early Availability is the one.
You’re required to sign-in. Click “Sign-in with HP Passport” button.
Sign-in
Finally. Click “Download” button (Read the SUPPORT CAUTION first).

10 Gigabit Ethernet OpenFlow switch from IBM

Masa — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:37:16 +0000

IBM announced 10 gigabit ethernet OpenFlow switch G8264, which has 48 × 10 GbE SFP+ ports and 4 × 40 GbE QSFP+ ports. It was demonstrated at Interop Las Vegas in May and now it is available as a product with GA. The switch runs in either of two modes, traditional L2/L3 mode or OpenFlow mode (the mode is chosen at the switch boot time). In OpenFlow mode, the switch supports up to 97,750 flows. Here is a link that lists the major features of the switch. More information at http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/options/networking/bnt8264/index.html

Open Networking Summit — Oct 17-19, 2011 at Stanford University

srini — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:56:38 +0000

Stanford Clean Slate Program, in cooperation with Open Networking Foundation (ONF), is pleased to announce Open Networking Summit — a premier event about OpenFlow and Software Defined Networking (SDN), to be held on October 17-19, 2011 at Stanford University LKS Center.

Plan to attend the summit to

Learn from creators and leaders of OpenFlow/SDN
Showcase your products and services
Network with growing OpenFlow/SDN community

Confirmed speakers include:

	Guido Appenzeller, Big Switch	Nick McKeown, Stanford/ONF
	Martin Casado, Nicira	Dan Pitt, ONF
	Matt Davy, Indiana/GMOC	Jennifer Rexford, Princeton University
	Stu Elby, Verizon	Scott Shenker, UC Berkeley/ONF
	Samrat Ganguly, NEC	Steven Stuart, Google
	Saar Gillai, HP	Rob Vietzke, Internet2
	Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook	David Ward, Juniper

For details, please visit: http://OpenNetSummit.org/

Boston CIO Workshop on Expanding OpenFlow/SDN deployments on Campuses a Success

jvanreij — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:12:00 +0000

The GENI CIO Workshop held in Boston on July 7 was a success with representatives participating from BBN, NSF, Internet2, EDUCAUSE and over 20 universities interested in deploying OpenFlow/SDN on their campuses. Chip Elliot (GPO) provided an update on GENI and an overview of the new US IGNITE initiative. Then there were short technology tutorials on OpenFlow/SDN and WiMax and a panel discussion where a number of campus CIOs talked about their experiences with OpenFlow/SDN, opportunities for larger production deployments, and a few concerns that need to be addressed. Concerns include better understanding of security implications of OpenFlow/SDN, how to delegate control of OpenFlow network slices to experimenters inside and outside the campus, and creation of an inter-domain OpenFlow network slice.

This workshop was the result of an initial meeting held at Stanford University on June 15 that lead to two white papers that outlined the case for expanding OpenFlow/SDN deployments on university campuses.

The timeliness of the workshop, informative presentations, together with the possibility of funding provided by the NSF and US IGNITE program, in support of the deployment OpenFlow/SDN on campuses made for a compelling meeting.

Participants agreed to further explore the opportunity of deploying OpenFlow networks and prepare their deployment proposals to GENI and the NSF some time this fall.

A Short Note in Support of OpenFlow/SDN on University Campuses (July 7, 2011 Boston)
A Case for Expanding OpenFlow/SDN Deployments On University Campuses (Jul 7, 2011 Boston)

CPqD releases an OpenFlow-based legacy IP routing platform

srini — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:16:48 +0000

CPqD recently released RouteFlow, an open-source framework to provide virtualized IP routing services over OpenFlow networks. With RouteFlow, one could use open-source routing stacks (such as Quagga), running within a controller environment on general purpose computers, to build a IP routing architecture with the line-rate performance of OpenFlow-enabled devices.

RouteFlow is available under an Apache license at github. For more details, click here.

Fourteen Vendors Demonstrate OpenFlow Switches at Interop

capveg — Thu, 26 May 2011 02:06:36 +0000

OpenFlow was a big splash at Interop. As one article put it, “Interop 2011 could have been called The OpenFlow Show” [1].

Critical to the OpenFlow Interop Labs display were four racks of OpenFlow-enabled switches running from fourteen different vendors, all interoperating and speaking to the same OpenFlow controller. Running on top of these switches were the FlowVisor, Load-balancing, and Flow-dragging demos from Stanford, as well as demos contributed by individual vendors.

Additionally, NEC’s “Programmable Flow” Switch won the “Best in Show” prize in the infrastructure category.

Congratulations to all of the volunteers at Interop who helped make this happen!

Also read the ONF website’s post on Interop with some press clippings:

http://www.opennetworkingfoundation.org/?p=44

More press coverage:

[1] http://www.itworld.com/openflow

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/051311-interop-openflow.html

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/openflow-buzz-interop

http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/it-expo/interopnet/openflow-lab/sponsors.php

http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/infrastructure/reviews/229402999

Internet2 building nation-wide OpenFlow Network

srini — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:21:55 +0000

Internet2, Indiana University and the Clean Slate Program at Stanford University have partnered to create a new nation-wide OpenFlow/SDN network as part of Network Development and Deployment Initiative. It would be the first OpenFlow/SDN network of this scale in wide area that would be available for both research and production use. The network would also peer with Research and Education Networks in Canada, Europe, Asia, and South America.

[More details]

OpenFlow on the Packet Pushers show

brandonh — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:00:10 +0000

The Packet Pushers just did a nice podcast on OpenFlow:

“This show is an introduction to OpenFlow – the why, how and what’s it gonna do ? We discuss OpenFlow with Matt Davey from Indiana University who is using OpenFlow enabled switches and wireless access points today.”

Available at http://packetpushers.net/show-40-upending-networking/.

OpenFlow and ONF in the news

Glen Gibb — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 21:03:21 +0000

A number of mainstream and technology-focused media organizations and blogs have been reporting on the creation of the Open Networking Foundation and the potential impact of OpenFlow over the past few days.

Articles published include:

Markoff, John. “Open Networking Foundation Pursues New Standards.” The New York Times 22 Mar, 2011.
Malik, Om. “How Software Will Redefine Networking.” GigaOm 21 Mar, 2011.
Shimel, Alan. “OpenFlow Seeks to Change the Networking World.” Network World 23 Mar, 2011.
Noyes, Katherine. “Google and Other Titans Form Open Networking Foundation.” PC World 22 Mar, 2011.
Vaughan-Nichols, Steven J. “OpenFlow: Internet 3.0?” ZDNet Blogs 23 Mar, 2011.
Ahmad, Najam. “Accelerating Network Innovation with the Open Networking Foundation.” Facebook Engineering’s Notes 23 Mar, 2011.
Miller, Rich. “OpenFlow: The Future of Google’s Network?” Data Center Knowledge 22 Mar, 2011.
Francheska, Alyangka. “Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo! Announce launch of Open Networking Foundation to speed network innovation.” International Business Times 23 Mar, 2011.
Brodkin, Jon. “Microsoft and Google find common ground in open networking.” Network World 24 Mar, 2011.

Open Networking Foundation Formed to Speed Network Innovation

David Erickson — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:21:37 +0000

PORTLAND, Ore.– Six companies that own and operate some of the largest networks in the world — Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo! — announced today the formation of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting a new approach to networking called Software-Defined Networking (SDN). Joining these six founding companies in creating ONF are 17 member companies, including major equipment vendors, networking and virtualization software suppliers, and chip technology providers.

In the past two decades, enormous innovation has taken place on top of the Internet architecture. Email, e-commerce, search, social networks, cloud computing, and the web as we know it are all good examples. While networking technologies have also evolved in this time, the ONF believes that more rapid innovation is needed. SDN fulfills this need by enabling innovation in all kinds of networks — including data centers, wide area telecommunication networks, wireless networks, enterprises and in homes — through relatively simple software changes. SDN thus gives owners and operators of networks better control over their networks, allowing them to optimize network behavior to best serve their and their customers’ needs. For instance, in data centers SDN can be used to reduce energy usage by allowing some routers to be powered down during off-peak periods.

The SDN approach arose out of a six-year research collaboration between Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. Essential to SDN are two basic components: a software interface (called OpenFlow) for controlling how packets are forwarded through network switches, and a set of global management interfaces upon which more advanced management tools can be built. The first task of ONF will be to adopt and then lead the ongoing development of the OpenFlow standard (www.openflow.org) and encourage its adoption by freely licensing it to all member companies. ONF will then begin the process of defining global management interfaces.

“Software-Defined Networking will allow networks to evolve and improve more quickly than they can today,” said Urs Hoelzle, ONF President and Chairman of the Board, and Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google. “Over time, we expect SDN will help networks become both more secure and more reliable.”

“With broad industry support from technology leaders and networking experts, the ONF brings new opportunities and flexibility to the future of networking,” added Jonathan Heiliger, ONF Founding Board Member and Vice President of Technical Operations at Facebook. “We’re actively encouraging new members to join us in this endeavor.”

The initial members (including founding companies) of ONF are: Broadcom, Brocade, Ciena, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Facebook, Force10, Google, HP, IBM, Juniper Networks, Marvell, Microsoft, NEC, Netgear, NTT, Riverbed Technology, Verizon, VMware, and Yahoo!.

A veteran of the networking industry and networking standards bodies, Dan Pitt will serve as Executive Director of the ONF starting on April 1, 2011.

ONF Founding Board Members Support Open Networking Technologies

“Industry-wide open application programming interface (API) efforts like ONF are promising for the next generation of network-based offerings,” said Bruno Orth, Senior Vice President of Network Strategy and Architecture at Deutsche Telekom. “SDN principles advance Deutsche Telekom’s vision of ‘connected life and work’ and are expected to accelerate innovation for a seamless customer experience.”

“As the owner and operator of one of the largest networks of data centers, Microsoft recognizes the potential of highly programmable network management systems to boost the capabilities of our cloud computing platform in a profound way,” said Arne Josefsberg, General Manager of Windows Azure Infrastructure at Microsoft.

“We believe the ONF effort will accelerate the development of key network capabilities, which will help evolve our networks to be more responsive to our customers’ needs,” said Stu Elby, Vice President, Network Architecture & Technology at Verizon.

“It is no surprise that the Internet audience continues to grow rapidly and the networks are the foundation of this expansion,” said Adam Bechtel, Vice President of Yahoo! Infrastructure. “Through the ONF, we’re excited to work towards improving the agility of massive networks and drive the evolution of SDN.”

“Stronger definition of network behavior in software is a growing trend, and open interfaces are going to lead to faster innovation,” said Nick McKeown, ONF Board member and professor at Stanford University. “We’re excited to see the industry building upon university research,” added Scott Shenker, ONF Board member and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

About the Open Networking Foundation

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a nonprofit, mutual benefit trade organization organized under Section 501(c)(6) of the US Internal Revenue code. ONF’s mission is to promote the development and use of Software-Defined Networking (“SDN”) technologies, including OpenFlow, to allow networks to improve more quickly. SDN enables rapid innovation because it allows network owners and operators to optimize the network for their needs.

(www.opennetworkingfoundation.org)

Contacts

Open Networking Foundation
650-516-6306
press@opennetworkingfoundation.org