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Cisco Fellow On Possible Threat To Cisco Of OpenFlow: 'Folks Get This': Page 2 of 2

In the same way that server virtualization abstracts the operating system and the VM from the physical server, OpenFlow-based SDN abstracts the network "control plane" from the physical network hardware, says Stanford’s Guru Parulkar, chair of the first-ever Open Networking Summit. The control plane is the set of instructions that direct how packets are managed on the network.

While server and storage virtualization has enabled more automated development of new IT services and greater efficiency, the network interfaces are comparatively "pretty old and archaic," says Parulkar. "With OpenFlow and SDN, the promise is that the networking interface will also mature to the point that you can use it in a plug-and-play way so that when you are provisioning an application or a service ... they are able to create a virtual network of their own specification," he says.

Cisco rival HP, as well as startup Big Switch Networks, were also at the conference touting their research and product development in SDN/OpenFlow. Charles Clark, research director in HP’s Networking business, touts the idea of a hybrid switch that would support OpenFlow as well as existing network switch architecture.

Clark, who also specifically addressed campus LANs as distinct from data center LANs, said hybrid switches would be needed because the transition from traditional networks to OpenFlow networks will be a long one. "Campus LAN network administrators won’t tolerate a forklift upgrade; they aren’t going to replace all of their equipment," Clark says. "Fortunately, we can evolve and move towards an SDN technology ... through an incremental plan."

While OpenFlow/SDN is nascent technology, interest is strong, says Parulkar. More than 600 people applied to attend the Stanford summit, but there was room for only 350. They were planning to hold the second annual summit a year from now but, because of demand, may hold the next summit sooner, perhaps in April 2012.

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