The document provides an overview of Software-Defined Networking (SDN), discussing its benefits, architecture, challenges, and use cases. It highlights the transformative impact of SDN on IT infrastructure, enabling better network management and application deployment through virtualization. Additionally, it outlines the industry's outlook, GTRI's solutions, and offers a free technology review service to assess organizations' readiness for SDN.

1. WWW.GTRI.COM
Software Defined Networking
(SDN) Technology Brief
Scott Hogg, Chief Technology Officer, GTRI
CCIE #5133, CISSP #4610
© 2016 Global Technology Resources, Inc.
All rights reserved.

2. Agenda
• SDN Introduction and Overview
• Benefits and Drivers for SDN
• SDN Use Cases
• SDN Industry Organizations
• Challenges and Objections to SDN, Industry
Outlook
• GTRI’s Solution Methodology
• GTRI’s SDN Solutions and Services

3. Software’s Influence on IT Infrastructure
• “The Times They are a-Changin’”, Bob Dylan
• Movement toward virtualization, multi-tenancy,
cloud services, the third platform, and influenced
by consumption economics
• “Why Software Is Eating The World”, by Marc
Andreessen, (WSJ, Aug 20, 2011)
• DevOps isn’t just a popular digital-age
portmanteau, its a movement of IT de-siloization
that is also coming to data-networking

4. Benefits of Virtualization and Software’s
Influence
• Servers have transformed from bare-metal to
virtualized OSs, and now applications are moving to
software containers (LXC, Docker, etc.).
• Storage systems now have dynamic features like
automatic tiering, thin-provisioning, de-duplication,
backups and replication.
• Networking is beginning to be influenced by software

5. Today’s Network Limitations
• Networking hasn’t changed substantially in 15 years
• Most network devices are manually configured one-at-a-time
• QoS and other policies are configured manually on each
individual device, not tied to current application traffic mix
or security policies
• IP routing protocols do not take traffic load into consideration
• Network Admins have only managed to moved from Telnet
to SSH
# telnet 10.2.6.9 # ssh –l cisco 10.2.6.9

7. What is SDN?
• Software-Defined
Networking (SDN) means
different things to
different people. Each
person thinks about SDN
from their own
perspective.

8. What is SDN?
• Software-Defined Networking is an approach to
networking that separates the control plane from the
forwarding plane to support virtualization.
• SDN is a new paradigm
for network
virtualization.

9. SDN High-Level Architecture
Controller
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Application Layer
Or
SDN Layer
Virtualized Application Services
Northbound API
Southbound API
Control Layer
Or
Controller Layer
Data Plane Layer
Or
Infrastructure Layer
Agent
Agent
Agent
Agent
Controller
East/West
Interface

10. ODL SDN Controller Architecture
Source: http://www.opendaylight.org/

11. SDN Benefits
• Greater span of control and network analytics and response.
• Better intelligence with a global view of the network rather than each
network element looking at the network from its own viewpoint.
• Improved application experience and empower the network
owner/operator.
• Rapid deployment of applications using networking that supports
the application’s specific needs.
• Simplified and automated IT administration.
• Opportunity to open up the network to a diverse set of vendors
and disaggregation.

12. SDN Use Cases

13. SDN Use Cases

14. SDN Value Proposition
Source: Cisco

15. SDN Industry Organizations
• Open Networking Foundation (ONF) - OpenFlow, OFConfig,
Table Type Patterns (TTP)
• OpenStack
• OpenDaylight
• IETF - OVSDB, I2RS
• ETSI - Network Functions Virtualization (NfV)

16. Objections and Challenges
• SDN Controller redundancy, security
o What happens if the controller fails?
• Central controller needs to be notified of any network failure
o How does this happen when the network is down?
o Latency for TCP/SSL control signaling – detect sub-ms failures
• Speed of flow setup
o Controllers will need to support many flows/second
• Vendor interoperability between controllers
o Do different vendors controllers interoperate?
o Current vendors have “Proprietary Openness”

17. Objections and Challenges (Cont.)
• SDN Internet extensibility
o How does the SDN controller interface to the Internet?
• Human factors
o Humans configure routers/switches manually and humans will configure
the controller manually
o SDN transcends IT group silos (networking, security, servers, …)
• SDN is an unproven technology
o Industry in its infancy, many small vendors, some vendors are not
shipping orderable products, lack of standards for controller interface
o Current IT staff has 25% of their time for new projects
• ROI/TCO analysis for enterprise deployments
o SDN deployments must preserve current IT investments

18. SDN Security Considerations
Controller
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
Network
Element
SDN Layer
Virtualized Application Services
Northbound API
Southbound API
Controller Layer
Data Plane Layer
Agent
Agent
Agent
Agent
Controlle
r
Controlle
r
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2840273/sdn/sdn-security-attack-vectors-and-sdn-hardening.html

19. SDN Operational Model
• Network and security administrators are sometimes threatened by
network programmability and software-defined networking.
• The truth is, your networking skills and knowledge is transferable to a
software-driven/defined world.
• Operational issues can arise in the new SDDC environment when groups
don’t cooperate well.
• Silos of IT operations don’t lend themselves to NFV and SDN and virtual
security policy enforcement.
• The traditional physical demarcations and lines of responsibility blur with
SDN and NFV.
• Cross-function and interdisciplinary DevOps teams are needed to make
SDN and NFV systems viable.

20. Elusive SDN Deployments
• Have you seen an SDN Deployment?
• Universities, campus slicing
• Hyperscale technology businesses and cloud
service providers who have dynamic networking
needs and high virtual machine density
• Organizations requiring network taps for data
analysis
• Some enterprise data-center deployments exist
20

21. SDN Industry Outlook
• More SDN deployments will emerge as solutions mature.
• We will see consolidation of vendors in this space
(major/larger vendors will absorb the best-of-breed).
• Larger vendors will include native SDN APIs to preserve
organization’s investment in networking products.
• Standards will emerge and the market will drive a
winning technology.

22. GTRI SDN Solutions
• GTRI’s Virtualization and Advanced Networking Professional Services (PS)
practice has expertise with SDN vendor solutions.
• GTRI has top-tier partner status with the most relevant long-term vendors
in the IT virtualization market.
• GTRI offers an SDN readiness assessment service to assess your
infrastructure, your applications, and the benefits to your business gained
from using SDN.
• GTRI has a SDN test bed where we can learn and teach SDN solutions and
help validate solutions prior to deployment.
• GTRI is performing SDN deployments and we will freely share the latest
vendor and industry information with you.

23. GTRI’s Solution Delivery Methodology

24. FREE SDN Technology Review
• We are offering a FREE 3-hour (~1/2 day) SDN
technology review for your company
• Bring your networking, security, DevOps, and other
technology teams together
• Review SDN capabilities within your existing
networked infrastructure
• Discuss SDN architecture and design options
• Review network automation and network
programmability potential

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Questions and Answers
Next Steps
SummarySummarySummarySummary
SHogg@GTRI.com
303-949-4865
@scotthogg