SDN AND BARE METAL SWITCHES ARE LIKE PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY: TWO GOOD THINGS THAT ARE GREAT TOGETHER!

Transcription

1 SDN AND BARE METAL SWITCHES ARE LIKE PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY: TWO GOOD THINGS THAT ARE GREAT TOGETHER! Rob Sherwood University of Arizona, SDN Workshop: January 2014

2 WHO AM I? Current hats: CTO, Controller Switch Networks Previous hats: Chair of ONF s ArchWG Stanford Clean Slate Lab Distributed systems researcher Really old hats (dusty?): Campus network admin Jack- of- all- trades sysadmin 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 2

3 TODAY, I M GOING TO TALK ABOUT YUM! 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 3

4 (REAL) OUTLINE SDN is great What are bare metal switches? Hardware without so\ware no ver^cal integra^on Buy switches just like you buy servers How do bare metal switches improve SDN? Faster innova^on No vendor lock- in Lower TCO ImplicaRons for APIs, AbstracRon, and OpenFlow Incendiary Claims and Conclusion 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 4

5 WE KNOW SDN IS GREAT! Industry Standards, Open APIs and Open Source ApplicaRon Tier SDN Applica^on SDN Applica^on SDN Applica^on SDN Applica^on Open APIs Big Switch s Products: Big Tap BVS Centralizes network automa^on & programmability Accelerates ecosystem of developers Enables applica^on mobility and flexibility Control Plane Tier SDN Controller Pla`orm Centralized SDN Controller Normalizes policy defini^on across en^re network Centralized topology and route crea^on This Talk Data Plane Tier Switch Switch vswitch vswitch vswitch vswitch Standards- Based Data Plane Protocol Standardizes abstrac^on of all network devices Support for Physical & Virtual Devices Mul^vendor network support 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 5

6 WHY WE NEED SDN Terminal Protocol: Telnet Terminal Protocol: SSH 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 6

7 HARDWARE VERTICALLY INTEGRATED HOLDS US BACK Ver^cally Integrated Systems Have Changed Lihle Over the Past 15+ Years Feature 1 Feature 2 Provisioning and Management Sta^c, manual configura^on Low feature velocity Proprietary Network OS Proprietary System Proprietary Silicon OperaRng Systems Few API s, only CLI (closed OS) Not externally programmable Hardware Systems Lock- in to a par^cular vendor System Silicon Slow innova^on cycles Expensive, no economies of scale 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 7

8 BY CONTRAST, SERVER EQUIPMENT IS OPEN Open Architecture Choice of Vendors Innova^on Velocity Low TCO Apache MySQL Nagios Custom Web App Hadoop etc. ApplicaRons 3 rd party or Custom Linux Windows VMware KVM Xen OperaRng System Open or closed source Virtualized or bare metal Many support models Dell HP Super Micro Hardware Systems Fierce compe^^on Branded or white box Bare Metal Server Intel AMD System Silicon Compe^^on and rapid innova^on 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 8

9 BARE METAL MEANS BUYING JUST THE HARDWARE No ver^cal integra^on just like how we buy our servers SDN Apps Tradi^onal OpenFlow OSPF BGP STP IGMP Switch- side ApplicaRon Re- create exis^ng distributed protocols New SDN- based applica^ons BSN Switch Light Pica8 Cumulus Network OperaRng System Open or closed source New Ecosystem Quanta Accton IW Networks Delta Alpha ODM and Brand Name Companies Bare Metal Switch Broadcom Mellanox Marvell Centec Intel Merchant Silicon Growing number of startups! 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 9

10 BARE METAL IS MORE THAN WHITE BOX Both white box and brand name vendors can support bare metal switches Brand Name Dell HP White Box No Name SuperMicro Will brand name server vendors become brand name bare- metal switch vendors? Brand Name? White Box Quanta Accton IBM Quanta ( ) Delta Networks ( ) 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 10

11 OUTLINE SDN is great What are bare metal switches? Hardware without so\ware no ver^cal integra^on Buy switches just like you buy servers How do bare metal switches improve SDN? Faster innova^on No vendor lock- in Lower TCO ImplicaRons for APIs, AbstracRon, and OpenFlow Conclusions/Incendiary Claims 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 11

12 FASTER INNOVATION Bare metal switches unlock so\ware- speed design/development cycles Pure SDN- only implementarons are simpler than hybrid Suppor^ng OpenFlow and tradi^onal protocols on one chip is hard Pure SDN à No need to virtualize the ASIC tables Market forces apply independently at each level e.g., Chip makers compete against other chip makers Lower barrier to entry for new companies/ideas Tighter development process Controller developers can also be switch developers Evolve OpenFlow standard more quickly and precisely 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 12

13 BARE METAL SWITCHES PREVENT VENDOR LOCK- IN Open so\ware standards at every layer New with Bare Metal: Between switch and switch operarng system Standardized boot loader: ONIE hgp://onie.github.io/onie/docs/overview/index.html Between switch operarng system and applicaron OpenFlow, OFConfig, SNMP, SFlow, etc. Between applicaron and management/orchestraron layer OpenStack Neutron (Quantum), CloudStack network API, etc B I G S W I T C H N E T W O R K S, I N C. W W W. B I G S W I T C H. C O M 13

14 REDUCED TCO FOR HARDWARE Bare Metal Switches are surprisingly inexpensive For example, Quanta s LY2 plajorm 48 x 10G ports + 4 x 40G ports Dual power supplies Iden^cal switch ASIC: Cisco Nexus 3048, Juniper QFX3500 Example prices from Google search quanta ly2 Source USD $ JPY ($1 =~ 99 ) PCsuperstore.com $8, ServerDirect.com $8, MacMall.com $9, Significantly lower prices available from resellers and in volume Table includes non- trivial cost for so\ware 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 14

15 REDUCED TCO WITH OPEN SOURCE DisaggregaRon: Buy so\ware, hardware independently Create and foster new ecosystem Linux Main interest: feature velocity see APIs Not intending to make money with this Market Factors: Customer interest in bare metal switches Vendor OpenFlow adop^on rate OpenFlow Commercial support or DYI with Vendor SDK Centec s Lantern Mellanox Open Ethernet Maybe more watch Open Compute Project B I G S W I T C H N E T W O R K S, I N C. W W W. B I G S W I T C H. C O M SwitchLight 15

16 EXAMPLE OPEN SOURCE SWITCH OS ARCHITECTURE Legend Controller 3 rd Party Open 3 rd Party Closed BSN Open BSN Binary SSH Switch Light Fan Control NTP Syslog SNMP Lib C Linux Kernel CLI ASIC Driver ASIC SDK ASIC OpenFlow Agent Loxi Indigo Vswitch Driver Vswitch Kernel x BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 16

17 OUTLINE SDN is great What are bare metal switches? Hardware without so\ware no ver^cal integra^on Buy switches just like you buy servers How do bare metal switches improve SDN? Faster innova^on No vendor lock- in Lower TCO ImplicaRons for APIs, AbstracRon, and OpenFlow Incendiary Claims and Conclusion 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 17

18 API DESIGN (IN THEORY) Step 1: Write, Publish API Step 2:??? Step 3: Profit! 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 18

19 API DESIGN (REALITY) $v = 0 do { $v++; write api(version = $v) write/port code on top of api find out problems with version $v think hard about how to fix them } while((! project Rmeout) (! customer tracron)) ; // hopefully becer than old $v Good API Design is an art, not a science Print Done - Version %d is the best API Ever!, $v Hope( not too wrong can rewrite enrre world) 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 19

20 GIVEN BARE METAL, IS OPENFLOW THE RIGHT API? Always in mo^on, the future is TradiRonal boxes did not allow direct programing of forwarding plane OpenFlow created as a compromise Beher but s^ll not full control Requires ^ght protocol API standardiza^on Standards process slows feature development Bare metal changes this Completely open forwarding plane now possible Controller and switch so\ware from same developer Loose API standardiza^on (if at all!) Feature velocity drama^cally improved But: hard to imagine bare metal without OpenFlow B I G S W I T C H N E T W O R K S, I N C. W W W. B I G S W I T C H. C O M OpenFlow Bare Metal YodaFlow? 20

21 EXAMPLE SDN + BARE METAL API: SWITCHLIGHT hhp://projec`loodlight.org/ Switch- side forwarding agent effecrvely a driver for SDN app Downloaded from controller when switch boots Simpler to test: agent supports single applica^on, not all Faster to code: no need to go through standards process SDN- like RPC language between Switch and Controller Communicates low- level forwarding primi^ves from controller to switch Mostly OpenFlow 1.3+ under the covers with vendor extensions Dodges hard problems of online feature nego^a^on and register/table config Vendor interoperability maintained, but at hardware/soyware layer Deploy/redeploy/change switch OS with ONIE Demo: dual boot a switch between Switchlight and Cumulus Linux 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 21

22 OUTLINE SDN is great What are bare metal switches? Hardware without so\ware no ver^cal integra^on Buy switches just like you buy servers How do bare metal switches improve SDN? Faster innova^on No vendor lock- in Lower TCO ImplicaRons for APIs, AbstracRon, and OpenFlow Incendiary Claims and Conclusion 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 22

23 INCENDIARY CLAIMS Just to make sure I get some ques^ons 1. Bare metal switches are proof of network hardware commodirzaron OpenFlow and SDN are effects of this, not the cause Definitely true in the data center and trending in other networks Number of merchant silicon vendors is on the rise, box vendors decline 2. The OpenFlow API (as it stands now) has to completely change Wire protocol is okay, but seman^cs and vision will change One switch- side agent that supports all applica^ons seem very hard Wrong economics: why would a vendor create a quality OpenFlow agent? - too complex to do cheaply, too standard to differen^ate and make $$$ API will go lower (Switchlight) or higher into policy/config (SNMP/Netconf) 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 23

24 CONCLUSIONS The bare metal switch hardware is a fundamental shiy in networking Buy and run network devices like servers SDN and Bare Metal Switches are like peanut buger and jelly Two great things that are even beher combined Combining SDN with Bare metal is the future Each SDN applica^on will deploy a custom switch- side forwarding agent Drama^cally increases feature velocity, simplifies tes^ng Vendor interop layer may happen at hardware/so\ware, e.g., ONIE Exact RPC API an implementa^on detail, not a global standard 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. 24

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