SDN

Thoughts on SDN

January 25, 2016 by bcarroll Leave a Comment

So after a nice round-table discussion at Networking Field Day 11 we are again trying to define SDN in the Campus, something that's been around for some time now. Terry Slattery kicked this conversation off and it kinda morphed from there. But the fact that we're still trying to define it tells me that there are still an enormous mass of people out there that don't have any idea what's happening in data networking today. You can watch the round-table discussion in the following video, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts on SDN and it's features, along with a recommendation as to where you can go to learn a bit more.

SDN Features

Greg Ferro published his definition and I have to agree with what Greg wrote. SDN is not a single thing. SDN is a shift in how networking is being done today. So here's how I see it.

SDN has a strong tie to Apps and API's. There should be software-based applications that provide a single interface for device configurations.
SDN has monitoring capabilities that make the traditional network monitoring capabilities look like a peeping-tom with a pair of binoculars sitting in a tree across the street. The new network is and end-to-end monitoring with visibility that's better than before.
SDN makes use of API's to decouple the software from the hardware, eliminating vendor lock-in and giving us the ability to move from vendor to vendor without a significant expense in new hardware.

SDN Learning

SDN is not scary. It's the future, even though we're probably not going to be calling it SDN. Rather we'love probably just call it “networking.” So take the time right now to learn about networking. A great site geared toward learning is http://www.sdnskills.com/ by Wendell Odom. Tom Hollingsworth wrote a piece on SDN after ONUG back in 2013 with some great references. In fact, if you start searching for SDN you're probably going to be overwhelmed. So, maybe just start with Wendells site and then start branching out from there.

Final Thoughts

Things may seem a bit murky right now but in time that will all go away. We can't just give a single straight-forward definition because SDN is still something that vendors and IT organizations are wrapping their head around. As already mentioned, at some point this will just be called “Networking.”

Big Switch Announces “Big Cloud Fabric 3.0” and Elastic SDN Pricing!

August 18, 2015 by bcarroll Leave a Comment

Many of this blogs readers are likely already familiar with Big Switch Networks. Big Switch delivers Big Switch Fabric unified physical and virtual SDN capabilities. I’ll let you read the details at http://www.bigswitch.com/. Big Switch was kind enough to brief me on the latest offering of Big Cloud Fabric 3.0 and their Hyper scale design. We also discussed their partnership with Dell and how that has opened the way for enterprise adoption of their next generation SDN solution on Dell open networking switches. All of that is very interesting, but was not the most interesting of their current announcements. What really got me thinking was Elastic SDN Pricing.

What Is Elastic SDN Pricing?

Elastic SDN Pricing as they put it, is a hyperscale-inspired pricing model that resembles something like we’ve seen in the virtualization world, only with physical switches, software, and support. Say what? Here’s how it works.

Customer purchases a 4 rack configuration and the 4 rack configuration price. This makes sense because this is what you need right now anyhow.
Big Switch sends you 8 racks of SDN fabric at no additional charge.
Now here’s the kicker…. you only use 4 racks unless you end up needing more capacity, in which you pay $599.00 per switch, per month, while you need it.

Considerations…

There are certainly some thing to consider here, like the rack space needed to support a “pre-install” of unused hardware. I didn’t ask, but could the scale up and scale down be automated with the addition of servers and such? Likely so, which would mean that the unused devices would have a power requirement, unless power up and down is automated as well, which is easy to do these days.

Final Thoughts

Over all I’m interested to see where this pricing model takes them. I think this could be a direction that others take if it proves to be successful for Big Switch. Going through the briefing I think I had the most questions around this concept of elastic pricing, while there were several other items of interest. Big Switch has been expanding significantly in what they offer with what appears to be some clear direction. Partnership with Dell should open a few doors and with the elastic pricing model being the first that I know of, they may be onto something that could spurn some short term growth while others find a way to match the offering in some way.

Recommended Resource For SDN

February 18, 2015 by bcarroll Leave a Comment

Today I want to specifically call out a friend who has one of the best resources for SDN learning, Ivan Pepelnjak. I just had a chance to spend some time with Ivan at Networking Field Day 9, and if you watch those videos it becomes very apparent that Ivan knows what he’s talking about. You know this is the guy you want to learn from when even the networking vendors are on the ready and querying him specifically for feedback. Anyhow, he’s a great guy that has a great offering: The Ipspace.Net Webinar Subscription..

Essentially you’re going to want the personal edition for $299 / year. I guarantee you’ll benefit from Ivans teaching!