OpenFlow Starter Tutorial Lab #1
Figure 1. The topology for the lab simulates in software the same capabilities you can get in hardware thanks to OpenvSwitch.[/crayon] This setup allows you to add and remove as many matches into the API calls and tinker with them to get a feel once you nail down the basics. Then you can write the next “killer app” get rich …
Cisco Networkers Live CLUS or whatever we call it now SDN Predictions
I was emailing with my buddy Roy at SDN Central http://www.sdncentral.com/ about it would be fun to see a poll for people to guess what Cisco will do with their big SDN announcement. I jotted down four options that are all in the realm of possibility, or at least the same realm of if SDN makes sense and will adopt. Let’s say solar-system …
The Northbound API- A Big Little Problem
The Northbound API- A Big Little Problem : What is a Northbound API (Application Programming Interface) in SDN? The Northbound API is available on a SDN controller that allows for applications to interact with the controller. The controller in turn, interacts with the network hardware through the OpenFlow protocol to manipulate the flow tables and send instructions to the underlying network substrate. …
The Best MPLS Lecture on the Net
The Best MPLS Lecture on the Net: The title says it all. Professor Karandikar gives two amazing lectures on MPLS and MPLS-TE that most engineers should hope to know cold. I watch it probably once every few months. Not saying much for my memory these days. It is an amazing amount of material delivered very precisely. Great stuff! I added some …
Ethernet Switch Fabric Cards
I was working with a buddy today about ethernet switch fabric cards in the nexus 7000 and not doing a very good job at explaining it, so I figured I would draw some pictures. The conversation was around how adding more fabric cards increases the bandwidth. I think some, myself included growing up on Catalyst 6500’s got accustomed to a …
NOX OpenFlow Controller Install on Ubuntu 12.04
Screencast w/o audio. I think it’s quick and self explanatory. This is an install for the newer NOX release on Ubuntu 12.04. I believe the branch name is ‘verity’. It was just upped a couple weeks ago to Github with the new repo linked from noxrepo.org. It isn’t fully released but the site said Q1 2012, at the least, it …
OpenvSwitch Configure from Packages and Attaching to a Floodlight OpenFlow Controller
OpenvSwitch Configure from Packages and Attaching to a Floodlight OpenFlow Controller: Couple folks have asked about installing OpenvSwitch from packages on Ubuntu 12.04 as opposed to from source. The default repos have v1.4 up so almost at the latest v1.4.1. OVS will be the de facto vSwitch in the hyper-scale providers in the future in my opinion. As Vmware’s Nicira acquisition …
Help Wanted: Cultural Change
Help Wanted: Cultural Change: This post is low on the nerdalert meter and more of the arts, rather than the science. Earlier this year, Level3 blogged about their new initiative of training ~%20 of their 11,000 person staff to be “change agents” in order to cross-pollinate their peers, the notion that change is healthy for the company (speculating). Change is …
