Using an Open Source SDN controller to deploy a high-speed production network

C3 | Wed 23 Jan | 1:30 p.m.–2:15 p.m.


Presented by

  • Brad Cowie
    @nzgizmoguy

    Brad is a member of the WAND Network Research Group at the University of Waikato. He is also a core member of the FAUCET project which develops an open source OpenFlow controller for enterprise networks. Utilising his years of experience deploying servers and networks he deploys FAUCET around the world doing SDN deployments with FAUCET.

Abstract

Faucet is a compact open source OpenFlow controller, which enables network operators to run their networks the same way they do server clusters. Faucet moves network control functions (like routing protocols, neighbor discovery, and switching algorithms) to vendor independent server-based software, versus traditional router or switch embedded firmware, where those functions are easy to manage, test, and extend with modern systems management best practices and tools. Faucet controls OpenFlow 1.3 hardware which delivers high forwarding performance. This talk will demonstrate how we recently used faucet to deploy a large 100G network for an HPC conference. We will present how faucet works, our network design and an evaluation of the benefits of our approach. For this deployment we were able to greatly simplify the network and replaced many thousands of lines of vendor-specific configuration with a single easy to understand YAML configuration file. Faucet allows users to avoid vendor lock-in in a unique way by implementing the network as specified by the faucet configuration in hardware using the OpenFlow protocol. In this case we demonstrate the control of devices from three different vendors. Linux Australia: http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/linux.conf.au/2019/c3/Wednesday/Using_an_Open_Source_SDN_controller_to_deploy_a_highspeed_production_network.webm YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DirEC3FnDyc