Data Center Networking: A Brave New World Abstract: Data centers are changing the way networking is done. When the revolution is over, the landscape will be as altered as the server landscape was when the Lintel tsunami swept aside the vertically integrated server market of the late 90s. In this talk, we'll explore the ideas that underpin these changes, ideas that include modern network architectures, network overlays and network management.

1. v
Data Center Networking:
A Brave New World
Dinesh Dutt, Chief Scientist
March 11, 2014

2. What Ails Networking
Mismatch between what networking provides and what
modern data center needs
March 11, 2014 2OFC 2014

3. Who Moved My Needs ?
Traditional Enterprise
Apps
 L2-centric
 Sensitive to network failures
 Coarse-grained failure domain
 Mostly static
• VLANs
• No Server Virtualization
 Mostly North-South
Lower Capacity
 Mostly 1G, with 10G uplinks
100s-few thousand
endpoints
Modern Data Center
Apps
 IP-centric
 Workaround network failures
 Fine-grained failure domain
 Dynamic
• Clouds
• Server Virtualization
 Mostly East-West
High Capacity
 Mostly 10G, with 40G uplinks
Thousands to millions of
endpoints
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4. What The Pioneers Did
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 Complex applications on
generic infrastructure
 Automation allows dynamic
deployment at scale
 Capacity = capex
 Business model = opex
Web Scale Operations
 Drive toward web scale efficiencies
 Operational benefit without the
development cost
 Searching for the right suppliers
Fortune 500

5. The Generic Infrastructure
L3-based
Scalable
Mature, interoperable technology
Simple feature set
L2-based
Not scalable
Immature or lots of proprietary
technology
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Old World New World

6. Scalability
Failure Domain
One size fits all
Predictable Latency
Oversubscription
More Observations on the Generic Infrastructure
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7. We Need To Talk About Automation
The problem with networking isn’t
networking, but managing it
 Current network administration tool chain is primitive
 No programmatic access
 L3 configuration is perceived as hard to configure
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8. Implications of These Trends
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Mature Technology
L3 based
Simple Feature Set
Automation
Rapid Deployment
Improve Network Admin Tool Chain
Programmatic Access
Off-the-shelf components, bare-
metal hardware
Support complex
applications
Loose coupling with Infrastructure
New World
The rise of merchant silicon
Original products from
traditional ODMs
Network OS that allows this
Strong offerings from
ecosystem, loose coupling
with infrastructure

9. You Say You Want A Revolution
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hardware
operating system
app app
Single Vendor
Blob
app
Multi Vendor
Ecosystem
hardware
operating system
appappapp
hardware
operating system
monitorroute
hardware
Minimal OS
Openflow Agent
March 11, 2014

10. We All Want To Change the World
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Gatekeeper
Boxes
Enabler
Platforms

11. You Say You Got a Real Solution
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Mature Technology
L3 based
Simple Feature Set
Automation
Rapid Deployment
Support complex
applications
New World
The rise of merchant silicon
Original products from
traditional ODMs
Network OS that allows this
Strong offerings from
ecosystem, loose coupling
with infrastructure

12. You Tell Me That It's Evolution
Don’t Throw The Baby Out
 Routing isn’t broken, it’s what runs the Internet
 Mature technology, lots of deployment experience, lots of tools
 On configuration side, server admin tool chain is mature, sophisticated,
in use
Change The Bathwater
 Simplify configuration and deployment
• Make it Cookie Cutter
• Cabling fault detection
• Leverage server admin toolkit and unify network administration with servers
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13. You Ask Me For a Contribution
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14. We'd All Love To See the Plan
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15. You Wanna Talk About Implementation
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Jan 16th Jan 24th Feb 6thJan 25th Jan 28th Feb 3rd
Jan 29th
Midokura
meeting
with Nolan
Trident II switch on
workbench made
available to
Midokura
Core Code Working
, Discussed option
to open ports , get a
VM setup and
connected to switch
port
First Demo
Recording
Done
Demo shown to
Cumulus staff by
Midokura Team
Got activation
and service
access to all
documentation
and support
portal
Midokura Demo with
Cumulus Integration
showcased at Open
Daylight
Midokura Timeline – Path to Integration
Initial Integration Lifecycle executed in 22 days

16. Look at the x86 server market
 operating systems
• closed – Windows, Solaris
• open – Linux, BSD, etc – RedHat, Debian
 applications
• closed – SAP
• open – Hadoop
Applications loosely coupled with infrastructure
 Application of the end-to-end principle
What I Think of When I hear Software Defined
Networking
We All Wanna Change Your Head
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17. If You Go Around Carrying Pictures of Chairman Mao
Data Center Networks are leading the charge to
open networks up
 Data centers today, Internet tomorrow ?
Common ground on many basics
 Network topology for the data center
 Break up the vertically integrated market
 Network as a platform, not a black box
Choose solutions that provide choice and are open
 Back to “rough consensus, working code”
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18. © 2014 Cumulus Networks. Cumulus Networks, the Cumulus Networks Logo, and Cumulus Linux are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cumulus
Networks, Inc. or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. The registered trademark Linux® is
used pursuant to a sublicense from LMI, the exclusive licensee of Linus Torvalds, owner of the mark on a world-wide basis.
Thank You!
March 11, 2014 18OFC 2014
All pictures courtesy of Wikipedia