Foundations of Modern

Networking
SDN, NFV, QoE, IoT, and Cloud

By: William Stallings

Chapter 3
SDN: Background and Motivation
Evolving Network Requirements
A number of trends are driving network providers and
users to reevaluate traditional approaches to network
architecture
 Demand is increasing
 Cloud computing
 Big data
 Mobile traffic
 The Internet of Things (IoT)
 Supply is increasing
 Traffic
Traditional Network Architectures
are Inadequate
As QoS and QoE requirements imposed on the network
are expanded as a result of the variety of applications,
the traffic load must be handled in an increasingly
sophisticated and agile fashion
The traditional internetworking approach is based on
the TCP/IP protocol architecture; characteristics of this
approach are:
 Two-level end system addressing
 Routing based on destination
 Distributed, autonomous control
Limitations
The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) cites four
general limitations of traditional network architectures:
 Static, complex architecture
 Inconsistent policies
 Inability to scale
 Vendor dependence
 The SDN Approach
 Requirements:

Adaptability
•Networks must adjust and respond dynamically, based on
application needs, business policy, and network conditions

Automation
•Policy changes must be automatically propagated so that
manual work and errors can be reduced

•Introduction of new features and capabilities must be seamless

Maintainability with minimal disruption of operations

Model management
•Network management software must allow management of the network at a model level,
rather than implementing conceptual changes by reconfiguring individual network elements

Mobility
•Control functionality must accommodate mobility, including
mobile user devices and virtual servers

•Network applications must integrate seamless security as a core

Integrated security service instead of as an add-on solution

•Implementations must have the ability to scale up or scale down

On-demand scaling the network and its services to support on-demand requests
 Characteristics of
Software-Defined Networking
 The control plane is separated from the data plane; data plane
devices become simple packet-forwarding devices
 The control plane is implemented in a centralized controller or set of
coordinated centralized controllers
 The SDN controller has a centralized view of the network or networks under its
control
 The controller is portable software that can run on commodity servers and is
capable of programming the forwarding devices based on a centralized view of
the network

 Open interfaces are defined between the devices in the control plane
(controllers) and those in the data plane
 The network is programmable by applications running on top of the
SDN controllers; the SDN controllers present an abstract view of
network resources to the applications
 Table 3.1

SDN and NFV

Standards
Activities
Standards-Developing Organizations
Internet Society (ISOC)
 The coordinating committee for Internet design, engineering,
and management
 Areas covered include the operation of the Internet itself and
the standardization of protocols used by end systems on the
Internet for interoperability
 Various organizations under the ISOC are responsible for the
actual work of standards development and publication
 Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF)
 Has working groups developing SDN-related specifications in
the following areas:

Interface to routing
Service function chaining
systems (I2RS)

Develop an architecture
Develop and capabilities for
capabilities to controllers to direct
subsets of traffic across
interact with
the network in such a
routers and routing way that each virtual
protocols to apply service platform sees
routing policies only the traffic it must
work with
International Telecommunications Union –
Telecommunication Standardization
(ITU-T)
 A UN agency that issues standards, called recommendations, in
the telecommunications area
• So far, their only published contribution to SDN is
Recommendation Y.3300 (Framework of Software-Defined
Networking, June 2014)
 Has established a Joint Coordination Activity on Software-
Defined Networking (JCA-SDN) and began work on developing
SDN-related activities
 Four ITU-T study groups are involved in SDN-related activities:
• SG 13 (Future networks, including cloud computing,
mobile, and next-generation networks)
• SG 11 (Signaling requirements, protocols, and test
specifications
• SG 15 (Transport, access, and home)
• SG 16 (Multimedia)
European Telecommunications Standards
Institute (ETSI)

 Recognized by the European Union as a European Standards

Organization
 Not-for-profit SDO has member organizations worldwide and
its standards have international impact
 Has taken the lead role in defining standards for NFV
 ETSI’s Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Industry
Specification Group (ISG) began work in January 2013 and
produced a first set of specifications in January 2015
 The 11 specifications include an NFV’s architecture,
infrastructure, service quality metrics, management and
orchestration, resiliency requirements, and security guidance
Industry Consortia
 By far, the most important consortium involved in SDN standardization is
the Open Networking Foundation (ONF)
 ONF is an industry consortium dedicated to the promotion and adoption of SDN
through open standards development
 Most important contribution to date Is the OpenFlow protocol and API
 OpenFlow protocol is the first standard interface specifically designed for SDN
 Enables networks to evolve by giving logically centralized control software the power to
modify the behavior of network devices through a well-defined “forwarding instruction
set”

 Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) is a consortium of leading global IT

organizations dedicated to accelerating adoption of interoperable solutions
and services for cloud computing
 Defining requirements for SDN and NFV cloud deployment through the
development of usage models for SDN and NFV

 Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solution (ATIS) is a membership

organization that provides the tools necessary for the industry to identify
standards, guidelines, and operating procedures that make the
interoperability of existing and emerging telecommunications products and
services possible
OpenDaylight
An open source software activity under the auspices of
the Linux foundation
Its member companies provide resources to develop an
SDN controller for a wide range of applications
Is more in the nature of an open development initiative
than a consortium
Also supports network programmability via southbound
protocols, a bunch of programmable network services, a
collection of northbound APIs, and a set of applications
 Open Platform for NFV
(OPNFV)
An open source project dedicated to accelerating the
adoption of standardized NFV elements
Will establish a carrier-grade, integrated, open source
reference platform that industry peers will build
together to advance the evolution of NFV and to ensure
consistency, performance, and interoperability among
multiple open source components
Will work with upstream projects to coordinate
continuous integration and testing while filling
development gaps
 OpenStack
Is an open source software project that aims to produce
an open source cloud operating system
Provides multitenant Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
and aims to meet the needs of public and private clouds
regardless of size, by being simple to implement and
massively scalable
SDN technology is expected to contribute to its
networking part, and to make the cloud operating
system more efficient, flexible, and reliable
End of Chapter 3