Is your data center ready for SDN

Data center operators
are being challenged
to be more agile and
responsive – and to
meet that challenge,
investments must
be made in data
center networks.
CENTER
IS YOUR DATA
READY FOR SDN?
CRITICAL DATA CENTER CONSIDERATIONS
FOR SOFT WARE-DEFINED NET WORKING
START

investments must
be made in data
center networks.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
OVERVIEW...................................................................................................................................................
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................
WHAT ARE SDN AND NFV?.........................................................................................................................
TOP 5 BENEFITS OF SDN AND NFV...........................................................................................................
ARE SDN AND NFV READY FOR PRIME TIME?..........................................................................................
ORCHESTRATION: A CRITICAL ENABLER FOR SDN AND NFV...................................................................
3 WAYS ETHERNET FABRICS CAN DELIVER ON THE PROMISES OF SDN AND NFV...............................
BROCADE VCS: A CORNERSTONE FOR THE NEW DATA CENTER.............................................................
CONCLUSION: GET READY TO MAXIMIZE YOUR INVESTMENTS..............................................................
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IS YOUR DATA CENTER READY FOR SDN?

investments must
be made in data
center networks.
OVERVIEW
This e-book explains the state of emerging
technologies such as Software-Defined
Networking (SDN) and Network Functions
Virtualization (NFV) in the data center, as
well as key considerations to make when
positioning your data center to leverage
these technologies. It will also explain the
essential role of mature technologies like
Ethernet fabrics in how they add value
today and create a strong foundation to
support them.
The adoption of SDN and NFV is not a
matter of “if” but “when,” and no matter
what your adoption time frame is or what
technologies become eminent, one thing is
clear: You’ll need a reliable and integrated
physical network underneath.
49%
40%
39%
24%
Improved staff productivity and operational efficiency
Implementing common management software, services
and processes across cloud and non-cloud environments
Reducing the number of software-management tools
Aggressively investing in automation and orchestration
in pursuit of business benefits, such as savings in
operational expenditures and greater business agility
Source: 2013 IDC IT Management Quickpoll
Leveraging Data Center Technology
IT MANAGEMENT PRIORITIES
Investment priorities for the next three years:
3IS YOUR DATA CENTER READY FOR SDN?
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responsive — and to
organizations must
invest in their data
center networks.
INTRODUCTION
Driven by pervasive virtualization, today’s
data center is experiencing unprecedented
fluidity and disruption, from computing
and storage to networking. Data center
operators, both enterprise and service
providers, are being challenged to be
more agile and responsive—to deploy
innovative new applications and services
faster than ever before. And to meet that
challenge, organizations must invest
in their data center networks. But data
center operators must also ensure that
the networks they invest in today don’t
lock them out of critical new technology
trends such as SDN and NFV.
Data center operators need headroom to
grow and future-proof protection to prepare
them for these emerging technologies.
Current state of adoption by organizations
with SDN programs:
Fully implemented
Early adoption/pilot
Test implementation
Research only
7%
54%
28%
11%
Progress of SDN Adoption Programs
Aberdeen Group, 2013
“
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SDN is an approach to networking in which
control is decoupled from hardware and
transferred to a software application called
a controller. It abstracts the underlying
infrastructure of the network so it can be
treated as a logical or virtual entity. SDN
separates the network’s control and forwarding
planes to make each one easier to optimize,
and it provides a centralized view of the
distributed network. The goal of SDN is to
enable network engineers and administrators
to make changes faster. In a software-defined
network, a network administrator can shape
traffic from a centralized control console
without having to touch individual switches.
The administrator can change any network
switch’s rules as needed —prioritizing, de-
prioritizing, or even blocking specific types
of packets with highly granular controls.
NFV is an initiative to virtualize network
functions previously handled by proprietary,
dedicated hardware. A new way to design,
deploy and manage networking services,
NFV decouples network functions—
including network address translation (NAT),
firewalling, intrusion detection, domain
name service (DNS), and caching—from
proprietary hardware appliances so they can
run in software. NFV leverages standard IT
virtualization technologies to consolidate
many types of network equipment onto
industry standard servers, switches, and
storage to reduce data center hardware,
power, and space requirements.
Mutually beneficial but not dependent upon
one another, SDN and NFV share a software-
based approach to networking to support more
scalable, agile, and innovative networks. But
SDN has a broad focus on traffic flow control
and manageability of the network. NFV is
more specialized, concentrating on virtualizing
and optimizing specific network services and
functions such as routers, application delivery
controllers, load balancers, and firewalls.
SDN and NFV
share a software-
based approach
to networking
to support more
scalable, agile and
innovative networks.
WHAT ARE SDN AND NFV?
SDN NFV
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TOP 5 BENEFITS
OF SDN AND NFV
1. Increased Business Agility: SDN
improves network orchestration,
manageability, and control, helping
network engineers and administrators
respond more quickly to changing
business requirements. With SDN,
administrators can control the flow
of traffic from a centralized location,
eliminating the need to manually log
onto and update individual switches.
Data traffic flow, prioritization,
and even security can be set up
centrally and distributed to all
switches quickly and efficiently.
2. Lower Operational Costs: SDN’s ability
to automate network provisioning and
orchestration can cut operating costs
by reducing overall management time
and decreasing the chance of errors
that lead to network disruptions.
3. Lower Capital Costs: NFV reduces
the cost of network devices such
as routers, firewalls, and security
appliances by allowing them to run
on common commodity platforms.
By enabling software-based network
functions, NFV reduces hardware,
power, and space requirements. Most
importantly, NFV can significantly
reduce networking complexity, which
eases network management tasks,
reduces potentially costly errors, and
speeds deployment of new capabilities.
4. Better Quality of Service: SDN also
improves Quality of Service, ensuring
that applications and business
organizations achieve the appropriate
level of responsiveness by prioritizing
certain types of network traffic. For
example, a latency-sensitive voice or
video call might receive higher priority
than an e-mail for which congestion
and latency concerns are less critical.
5. Improved Security: SDN can improve
security by blocking or rerouting traffic
based on software-defined rules. This
is particularly helpful in multitenancy
use cases such as on-premises or off-
premises cloud-computing services.
6.
SDN can cut
operating costs by
reducing overall
management time
and decreasing the
chance of errors
that lead to network
disruptions.
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ARE SDN AND
NFV READY FOR
PRIME TIME?
There’s no question that SDN and NFV will
be important networking technologies, but
all the pieces are just starting to fall into
place. Because SDN requires support and
communication across a broader range
of devices than NFV, it will take longer to
reach mainstream adoption. Vendors have
only recently started coming out with their
SDN-ready infrastructure products; SDN is
still mostly being tested in lab settings.
A November 2013 Infonetics Research
study1
shows that most enterprises are
still “kicking the tires” on SDN. Infonetics
doesn’t expect SDN to move out of the
enterprise labs until 2015, with full rapid
mainstream acceptance coming in 2017.
SDN on commodity switches – where the
technology reveals even more of its value
— is even less mature than SDN itself.
Only organizations with the resources and
expertise to customize their technology
should consider this right now.
NFV, meanwhile, is already being deployed
in production environments. NFV’s focus
on replacing specific network functions
that typically were provided by expensive
network appliances makes it easier for
vendors and customers to get started
developing and implementing these
services. So it’s much closer than SDN
to gaining broad market adoption.
There’s no question
that SDN and NFV
will be important
networking
technologies, but
all the pieces are
just starting to
fall into place.
1
http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2013/Data-Center-and-SDN-Market-Highlights.asp
2015 2017
SDN is expected to have
full mainstream acceptance
in 2017
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ORCHESTRATION: A
CRITICAL ENABLER
FOR SDN AND NFV
Network orchestration, which is already
beneficial in today’s data center, will
become critical as SDN and NFV become
mainstream. Orchestration combines
multiple automated tasks such as
infrastructure, middleware, applications, and
data services into a coordinated workflow
aligned with business needs. It can help
provision the network, storage network,
storage, firewalls, port profiles, operating
system, and even applications, while
incorporating security each step of the way.
As SDN begins to dynamically shape traffic
flow through software, NFV-based solutions
can be automatically instantiated, and
processes can be created to automatically
take specific action under certain conditions.
Additionally, administrators will be able
to automatically deploy complex services
that require a server, network policies, and
storage. As with the other technologies,
orchestration simultaneously reduces
operational costs and improves agility.
Orchestration
combines multiple
automated tasks
into a coordinated
workflow aligned
with business
needs.
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3 WAYS ETHERNET
FABRICS CAN
DELIVER THE
POTENTIAL OF
SDN AND NFV
For SDN and NFV to deliver their full
potential, they need to run on an optimized,
SDN-ready network foundation, with
Ethernet fabrics playing a crucial role.
SDN cannot be simply moved on top of a
complex, unreliable, limited-scale physical
network because the benefits will be lost
in the increased complexity and higher
maintenance of existing architectures.
Unfortunately, very little existing enterprise
infrastructure is fully SDN-capable, so
many organizations will have to replace
almost everything to enable SDN.
The major question, then, is what are the
key requirements and considerations as you
map a strategy to address the data center’s
immediate pain points while also readying
your network for SDN and NFV?
SDN-ready infrastructure is an obvious
primary requirement, but so are Ethernet
fabrics, which provide the automation,
optimization, and resilience needed to
realize the full benefits of SDN and NFV.
Overall, a modern, well-architected
network has three key characteristics:
1. Simple and automated
2. Optimized
3. Resilient
1. Simple and Automated: A simple and
automated network is a network where
ports, links and devices do not need
to be micromanaged and is
“VM-aware.” Whether it’s provisioning
for virtual machines (VMs), enabling
VM mobility, or adding network capacity,
it should be accomplished with zero
touch provisioning. It must have
centralized management and easily
integrate with orchestration framework
tools such as OpenStack.
Ethernet fabrics
provide the
automation,
optimization and
resilience needed
to realize the full
benefits of SDN
and NFV.
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10
Simple
and
Automated
Optimized
Resilient
2. Optimized: Network optimization
requires a flatter, multipathed
architecture to reduce the number
of network hops and communication
latency and facilitate server-to-server
(or “East-West”) traffic pattern growth.
All links should be active—there’s no
room for idle, redundant links that
must be laboriously configured and
maintained. It should also support
automatic load balancing and
shortest-path capabilities. An
optimized network should be
SDN- and virtualization-integrated,
and support multipathing capabilities
at all network layers. There should
be 1/10/40/100 GbE support with
easy software-based upgradability,
and all switches should utilize a
nonblocking, wire-speed architecture.
3. Resilient: A good network foundation
must be resilient, with automatic traffic
re-routing around failed links and
load-balancing capabilities.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
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9.
BROCADE VCS
FABRICS: A
CORNERSTONE
FOR THE NEW
DATA CENTER
Brocade®
VCS®
fabrics delivers the value of
Ethernet fabrics today, and also provides
an optimized, automated, and scalable
foundation that is just a software upgrade
away for future SDN and NFV deployments.
Brocade VCS fabrics provide zero-touch
provisioning and are self-forming.
By simply connecting two switches,
a VCS fabric is automatically created,
multiple links automatically form Link
Aggregation Groups (LAGs), and port
profile information is shared among all
members of the VCS fabric. The Brocade
VCS Logical Chassis feature provides
centralized management of up to 32
switches, and allows administrators to add
capacity through a simple software update.
VCS fabrics integrate with OpenStack
through a single IP for communication.
Brocade VCS fabrics use a flatter fully
optimized architecture where all links are
active, and also provide automatic load
balancing and shortest-path capability
to ensure optimum performance. VCS
fabrics support OpenFlow v1.3 for SDN
controllers, APIs, and network virtualization
technologies. VCS fabrics are VM-aware
and work seamlessly with all server
virtualization technologies. With VMWare,
VCS fabrics can pull VM profile information
directly from vCenter and automatically
migrate those port profiles across the
VCS fabric using Automatic Migration of
Port Profiles (AMPP). In addition, VCS
fabrics are resilient, with seamless traffic
re-routing whenever a failure occurs.
Even before a data center implements SDN,
Brocade VCS fabric technology enables
administrators to add capacity five times
faster than they could with competing
technologies, and increases network
efficiency by 200 percent. Combined with
SDN, VCS fabric technology can quickly cut
network OpEx in half right now, not years
down the road.
VCS enables
administrators
to add capacity
faster than
they could with
competing
technologies.
5X
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CONCLUSION: GET
READY TO MAXIMIZE
YOUR INVESTMENTS
SDN promises tremendous benefits,
and NFV is already delivering some
of those advantages. For maximum
impact, however, SDN and NFV must
run on top of a simple, optimized, and
resilient physical network foundation.
Ethernet fabrics provide that physical
infrastructure with a blend of
SDN-ready and, in the case of Brocade
VCS fabrics, advanced switch-based
services. Implementing Brocade VCS
fabric technology now delivers many of
SDN’s promised benefits immediately,
and enables you to take advantage of SDN
solutions when you’re ready. Instead of
locking you out of SDN, VCS fabrics let you
seamlessly migrate to more comprehensive
SDN solutions as they become available.
Brocade was the first vendor to provide
Ethernet fabrics, and more than 1,700
customers worldwide use its proven
VCS fabric technology. Committed to
open-source, Brocade is completely
focused on its core networking competency.
That’s why Brocade works with best-in-class
partners at all different layers within
the data center to help enterprises and
service providers deploy best-in-class
solutions—now and in the future.
Brocade VCS fabrics
let you seamlessly
migrate to more
comprehensive SDN
solutions as they
become available.
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COMPLETE THE
SDN-READINESS ASSESSMENT
WANT TO TALK?
CONTACT US

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Brocade®
(NASDAQ: BRCD) networking solutions help the world’s leading organizations
transition smoothly to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. This
vision is designed to deliver key business benefits such as unmatched simplicity, nonstop
networking, application optimization, and investment protection.
Innovative Ethernet and storage networking solutions for data center, campus, and service
provider networks help reduce complexity and cost while enabling virtualization and cloud
computing to increase business agility.
To help ensure a complete solution, Brocade partners with worldclass IT companies and
provides comprehensive education, support, and professional services offerings.
(www.brocade.com)
ABOUT BROCADE
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