The presentation discussed software-defined internet exchange points (SDXs) and the iSDX platform. SDXs can help solve internet routing problems by offering more flexible traffic control and innovative services compared to traditional Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)-based internet exchanges. The iSDX project developed an industrial-scale SDX that can support the data plane performance and scalability required for a major internet exchange through optimization techniques. It is deployed via an open source software stack and several organizations are working to adopt iSDX in public internet exchanges and enterprise networks.

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ONF& iSDX Webinar
Software-Defined Internet Exchange Points Offer New
Hope for Solving Internet Routing Problems
April 26, 2016

3. Sponsored by© 2015 SDNCentral. All Rights Reserved.
Your Presenters for Today
Roy Chua
Co-Founder
SDxCentral
Nick Feamster
Acting Director
Center for Information Technology
Policy (CITP)
Princeton University
Arpit Gupta
Ph.D. Student
Computer Science
Princeton University
Rick Bauer
Director of Technical
Programs
ONF
April 26, 2016

4. Sponsored by
Agenda
• ONF & Open Source Initiatives
• The Importance of iSDX – Why, What, How
• Intro to iSDX
• iSDX Demo
• iSDX & other initiatives in the SDN Ecosystem
© 2015 SDNCentral. All Rights Reserved.
For Today’s Webinar with the ONF & iSDX

5. Sponsored by© 2015 SDNCentral. All Rights Reserved.
Welcome to SDxCentral Webinar with ONF & iSDX
Relevant Industries Who Should Attend? Key Takeaways
• Enterprises
• Service Providers
• Fortune 500
• Technology Infrastructure
Professionals
• Network Engineers
• Network Operators
• Why the industry needs
ISDX
• iSDX vs. Other SDN
initiatives
• iSDX Demo
• The customer viewpoint
April 26, 2016

6. 6
1. Work closely with network operators to build complete deployable solutions
2. Where possible, adopt (and get behind) existing open-source components.
3. Where necessary, create, adapt or commission missing components.
4. Organize and orchestrate as one large open-source effort
5. Tools and infrastructure to commission quickly, collaborate freely, with
minimum upfront cost and maximum speed to solution (tools, licenses,
support, etc.)
Principles
Standards-based, reference SDN distributions, easy to
deploy and operate on ONF member hardware
Vision of ONF Open Source SDN

7. OSSDN Portfolio
7

8. Call to Action
• Bring your requirements,
use cases, sign-up for
trials
• Integrate your switching
hardware, controller or apps.
• http://opensourcesdn.org/
8

9. iSDX: An Industrial-Scale
Software-Defined IXP
Nick Feamster
Arpit Gupta
Princeton University
http://sdx.cs.princeton.edu
Robert MacDavid, Rüdiger Birkner,
Marco Canini, Jennifer Rexford, Laurent Vanbever

10. The Interdomain Ecosystem is Evolving ...
10
Flatter and densely interconnected Internet*
*Labovitz et al., Internet Inter-Domain Traffic, SIGCOMM 2010

11. …But BGP is Not
• Routing only on destination IP prefixes
(No customization of routes by application, sender)
• Can only influence immediate neighbors
(No ability to affect path selection remotely)
• Indirect control over data-plane forwarding (Indirect mechanisms to
influence path selection)
11
How to overcome BGP’s limitations?

12. SDN for Interdomain Routing
• Forwarding on multiple header fields
(not just destination IP prefixes)
• Ability to control entire networks with a single software
program (not just immediate neighbors)
• Direct control over data-plane forwarding (not
indirect control via control-plane arcana)
12
How to incrementally deploy SDN for
Interdomain Routing?

13. Deploy SDN at Internet Exchanges
• Leverage: SDN deployment even at single IXP can yield benefits
for tens to hundreds of ISPs
• Innovation hotbed: Incentives to innovate as IXPs on front line of
peering disputes
• Growing in numbers: ~100 new IXPs established in past three
years*
13
*https://prefix.pch.net/applications/ixpdir/summary/growth/

14. “SDX: A Software-Defined Exchange Point”
(SIGCOMM 2014)
Arpit Gupta, Nick Feamster, Laurent Vanbever, Muhammad Shahbaz, Sean
Donovan, Brandon Schlinker, Scott Shenker, Russ Clark, Ethan Katz-Bassett
14
“An Industrial-scale Software Defined Internet
Exchange Point” (NSDI 2016)
Arpit Gupta, Robert MacDavid, Rudiger Birkner, Marco Canini, Nick
Feamster, Jennifer Rexford, Laurent Vanbever
http://sdx.cs.princeton.edu

15. Internet Exchange Points (IXPs)
AS A Router
AS C Router
AS B Router
BGP Session
Switching Fabric
IXP
Route Server
15

16. Software Defined IXPs (SDXs)
AS A Router
AS C Router
AS B Router
BGP Session
SDN Switch
SDX Controller
SDX
16

17. SDX Opens Up New Possibilities
• More flexible business relationships
Make peering decisions based on time of day, volume of traffic & nature of
application
• More direct & flexible traffic control
Define fine-grained traffic engineering policies
• Better security
– Prefer “more secure” routes
– Automatically blackhole attack traffic
17

18. SDX Enables Innovations at IXPs
• Dropping of attack traffic
– Blocking unwanted traffic in middle of Internet
• Inbound traffic engineering
– Divide traffic by sender or application
• Application-specific peering
– Video traffic via Comcast, non-video via ATT
• Server load balancing
– Select data centers to handle request
• Redirection through middleboxes
– E.g., transcoding, caching, monitoring, etc.
18

19. SDX Enables Innovations at IXPs
• Dropping of attack traffic
– Blocking unwanted traffic in middle of Internet
• Inbound traffic engineering
– Divide traffic by sender or application
• Application-specific peering
– Video traffic via Comcast, non-video via ATT
• Server load balancing
– Select data centers to handle request
• Redirection through middleboxes
– E.g., transcoding, caching, monitoring, etc.
19

20. Use Case: Prevent DDoS Attacks
20
AS 2
AS 1
AS 3
SDX 1 SDX 2
Attacker
Victim
AS1 can remotely block attack
traffic at SDX(es)

21. SDX-based DDoS protection vs.
Traditional Defenses/Blackholing
• Remote influence
Physical connectivity to SDX not required
• More specific
Drop rules based on multiple header fields, source address,
destination address, port number …
• Coordinated
Drop rules can be coordinated across multiple IXPs
21

22. SDX Enables Innovations at IXPs
• Dropping of attack traffic
– Blocking unwanted traffic in middle of Internet
• Inbound traffic engineering
– Divide traffic by sender or application
• Application-specific peering
– Video traffic via Comcast, non-video via ATT
• Server load balancing
– Select data centers to handle request
• Redirection through middleboxes
– E.g., transcoding, caching, monitoring, etc.
22

23. Use Case: Inbound TE
23
AS A
Router
AS C Routers
AS B Router
SDX Controller
SDX
C1 C2
10.0.0.0/8

24. Use Case: Inbound TE
24
AS A Router
AS C Routers
AS B Router
C1 C2
Incoming Data
10.0.0.0/8
Incoming Traffic Out
Port
Using BGP Using SDX
dstport = 80 C1

25. 25
Incoming Traffic Out Port Using BGP Using SDX
dstport = 80 C1 ? match(dstport =80) fwd(C1)
AS A Router
AS C Routers
AS B Router
C1 C2
Incoming Data
10.0.0.0/8
Enables fine-grained traffic engineering policies
Use Case: Inbound TE

26. Data Plane Scalability Challenges
26
Devices Operations
Data Plane Performance
State
(# entries)
Update Rate
(flow-mods/s)
Match-Action on Multiple Headers 100K 2,500

27. Data Plane Scalability Challenges
27
Devices Operations
Data Plane Performance
State
(# entries)
Update Rate
(flow-mods/s)
Match-Action on Multiple Headers 100K 2,500
Matches on IP Prefixes only ~1M N/A
Problem: Optimize the usage of
available devices

28. We Can Do This at Industry-Scale!
28
100 200 300 400 500
Participants
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
ForwardingTableEntries
Unoptimized
MDS SDX-Central
iSDX
Optimal
BGP routes and updates for large
EU IXP in a commodity hardware switch

29. Ongoing Deployment Efforts
• Public Internet Exchange Points:
– Large IXPs in Europe, Endeavour Project
– Smaller IXPs in Pakistan, ISOC
• Enterprise Networks:
– Inter-agency exchange point
• Wide Area Networks :
– CloudRouter, IIX 29

30. Conclusion
• SDN-based exchange (SDX) is promising for
fixing Internet routing
• Solved various challenges in building a real
deployable SDX
• Many open research problems, both for building
and using SDX 30

31. You Can Run iSDX Today!
Running code
• Vagrant & Docker based setup
• Instructions to run with HW switches
• Github Repo: https://github.com/sdn-ixp/iSDX
31
http://sdx.cs.princeton.edu

32. iSDX Architecture
IXP Fabric
Central Services
IXP Controller
BGP Relay
ARP Relay
Participant Controller
ARP Handler
BGP Handler
RIBs
Fabric Manager
BGP Updates
ARP Requests
Forwarding Table Entries
Update Handler
Policy Compression Library
32

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