11 tips to help you face SDN

How to transition to SDN? First, you need to know what a software-defined network is and what it can do for you. Then, you need to understand the internal working principles of SDN controllers, the differences between well-known suppliers and products provided by startups, and whether open-source and bare metal switching can be used as a choice. Finally, understand your own network, such as whether it supports S

How to transition to SDN? First, you need to know what a software-defined network is and what it can do for you. Then, you need to understand the internal working principles of SDN controllers, the differences between well-known suppliers and products provided by startups, and whether open-source and bare metal switching can be used as a choice. Finally, understand your own network, such as whether it supports S

How to transition to SDN? First, you need to know what a software-defined network is and what it can do for you.

Then, you need to understand the internal working principles of SDN controllers, the differences between well-known suppliers and products provided by startups, and whether open-source and bare metal switching can be used as a choice. Finally, understand your network. For example, can it support SDN or require large-scale elimination and replacement? At the same time, learn from the experience of other enterprises. The following are 11 tips to help you deploy SDN.

1) Understanding SDN: Many enterprises still do not know what a Software Defined network is, what it contains, and how to benefit from SDN. Understanding SDN is the first step to understand how SDN helps and hinders your enterprise network. Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and Amazon often boast the advantages of SDN, but these companies are not mainstream vendors deploying SDN; they are only at the forefront of all fields of computing and network. You should understand all of SDN, and you can even give your own definitions.

2) Know what you want to do: Goldman Sachs wants to open standards, commodity scale architecture, independent and programmable data and control planes, virtualized 4-7 layer network services ...... SDN was initially designed for data centers, but enterprise WAN is now the focus of SDN automation and orchestration advantages. Do you need a centralized or distributed control plane? Why or why not? Some notable SDN applications are analysis and data packet monitoring. Given that SDN can quickly ease traffic with just a few clicks. Through software orchestration and automated networks, you can save money and operating expenses. Determine what your SDN goals are and gradually achieve them.

3) Security Risks: centralized SDN control makes the work of network operators easier, but it also provides a single point of catastrophic failure or attack point for attackers or malicious content. How does the Controller handle system interruptions that require re-routing traffic? If attackers gain control of the controller, can attackers paralyze your network?

4) Think about where to start: As mentioned above, SDN initially (and now) targets data centers, and the benefits of reducing automation and orchestration, capital and operation costs are even more obvious in data centers. But now we hear that enterprise WAN is the main focus of SDN. WAN can also benefit from the automation and simplified management of SDN. Major IT trends, such as SaaS, private cloud, BYOD, mobility, and Voice/Data Integration, all increase the quality requirements for links in the enterprise WAN. WAN links now need to improve security, reduce latency, improve reliability, and support any device anywhere to adapt to these trends. SDN can help enterprises achieve these goals without upgrading a single WAN link. It can prioritize applications and traffic, simplify configuration, and improve security.

5) Determine how to start: experienced people will tell you how to start from scratch. First, build a small test and open network for SDN, instead of a large-scale network. In this way, if anything goes wrong, you will not affect the entire production network. After the process goes smoothly, you can gradually put the SDN test on the production network and build another small network for the transition. Then, SDN can combine the development and operation networks into a single DevOps environment. New features can be quickly used in the production environment after development and testing.

6) Evaluate the products of different vendors: understand major suppliers and their SDN/programmable network products: cisco's application-centric infrastructure, Vmware's NSX, HP's virtual application network, and Juniper's Contrail. Know the similarities and differences of these products: physical/virtual network coverage, network virtualization layer, OpenFlow-based forwarding and traffic management. When evaluating a product, consider what you are trying to achieve.

7) Research on open-source and white-board products: in this case, there may be no more complex data centers than companies such as Webscale. Google uses a lot of on-site hardware and software, such as product chip switches and open-source software from original design manufacturers. The OpenDaylight project has established an open-source SDN framework based on code from multiple vendors, allowing all enterprises to download SDN from this community. however, Google's SDN has added many secret weapons. Open-source and white-board switches may be able to meet this SDN task, but you need to design, install, run, manage, maintain, serve and support this infrastructure on your own. Unless you choose to purchase from a vendor such as Dell and Cumulus.

8) Check out the start-up products: Cumulus is a startup company that advocates open-source and white-label products, including Linux operating systems dedicated to networks that can run on bare metal switches. This is expected to significantly reduce the cost of the data center network, and through the Dell partnership, customers can now get services and support from the data center giant. In the SDN field, startups are everywhere: Vello Systems has released OpenFlow 1.4 software for Optical enterprise SDN; Pluribus and Adara work closely with servers and exchanges to integrate virtual services and physical infrastructure; big Switch Networks focuses on the arrangement of physical and virtual network resources. the NCX System of Anuta Networks is a software VM or a controller and proxy Based on x86 devices. It uses protocols and APIs (including OpenFlow) array to automate the configuration and orchestration of 2-7 layer network services. Enterprises should look at the SDN technologies from these startups.

9) determine the features you need to obtain from the SDN Controller: Ethan Banks lists what the SDN controller can provide for us. These factors include performance, capacity, topology, functionality, openness, and supplier locking. However, Banks concluded that in addition to fully understanding the controller itself, enterprises must perform due diligence on their networks and clarify what they want SDN to do.

10) learn from the experience and best practices of other companies: the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center hopes that SDN and Private clouds can enable their networks to meet the virtualization requirements of the school. The University of Notre Dame tries to use OpenFlow as a way to connect data centers through optical fiber. They are using open-source controllers and server monitors, transferring workloads in data centers, testing scalability, and researching SDN through IBM, you can also share your experience. Bloomberg has a dedicated SDN for traffic monitoring and financial application development. They are also considering how to extend SDN coverage to Internet and off-network cross-cloud computing users. All these enterprises agree that SDN is deployed slowly.

11) considering the impact of existing networks: the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center found that when mobile virtual machines fail to meet the requirements, they chose SDN private cloud. Most SDN networks may need to be upgraded on a large scale for more than five years. Cisco is launching a new switching series for network programmability centered on its applications. The new SDN core switch (EX9200) of zhanbo network will need to be upgraded to EX8200. in fact, SDN will make many older switches outdated. Before moving to SDN, you need to understand the degree of transition.