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NEC Innovation Series
The Networking
Revolution
Network virtualization enabled by Software-Defined Networking, as exemplified by the new
OpenFlow standard, promises far-reaching changes in the ICT world. NEC leads the world in
the implementation of this new technology
For many operators of data centers,
especially those offering cloud services,
virtualization technology has brought many
benefits. Virtualization allows one physical
server to act as if it were many machines,
and when demand is heavy, many servers
can be clustered and act as one computer.
Storage systems have likewise been
virtualized, allowing data storage “pools”
to be created and allocated on demand,
but networking has lagged behind until
now, and has been a more static and
inflexible component of the data center’s
infrastructure.
Open up the Box!
For Hiroyuki Watanabe, General Manager,
Enterprise Solutions Operations Unit,
“current networking products are basically
closed boxes. Computers are now open in
The network becomes open with SDN
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that users are able to write applications for
them. Networking hardware is currently a
closed inflexible architecture, which cannot
be changed or modified by the user,” he
explains. “Data center operators simply use
it and cannot optimize it.”
His vision is to open up the hardware
used in networks, allowing custom
applications to be run on it, increasing its
responsiveness, flexibility, and efficiency.
Such a network, where the functionality
is configured and controlled via software,
rather than its physical configuration and
deployment, provides SDN (SoftwareDefined Networking). Recent developments
have resulted in networks which are more
responsive to user needs, whether the user
is an enterprise operating its own data
center, or an ICT provider supplying cloud
services to corporate clients. As capacity is
required or becomes redundant, resources
can be brought into or taken out of play,
thereby maximizing the investment made by
an enterprise in its network.
OpenFlow, an open source SDN
protocol, provides a platform on which
such an open architecture can run, making
networks as flexible as the rest of the
data center, and able to respond to the
changing demands. For example, a data
center housing many tenants may need to
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Network Management with SDN
change a network’s topology as new tenants
are added, or as the demands of existing
tenants change.
In an OpenFlow network, the switches
route network traffic according to the rules
set up in a “flow table” inside the switch.
Software commands issued from a central
controller may be used to rewrite these
tables, allowing instant changes to the
network architecture. Furthermore, this is an
open inter-manufacturer protocol, thus one
command set can be used to modify the
configurations of hardware from
different makers.
Go with the (Open) Flow
At the end of 2006, Stanford University’s
Professor Nick McKeown proposed an
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initiative to implement SDN, resulting in
the development of the OpenFlow protocol
above, which has since been ratified as an
inter-manufacturer standard, with the Open
Networking Foundation having 89 members
as of February 2013.
Dr. Atsushi Iwata, Deputy General
Manager, Cloud Systems Research
Laboratories, worked together with
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McKeown at Stanford on this project,
allowing NEC to be the winning vendor
in the race to bring a range of OpenFlow
products to the market. OpenFlow is
“open” in two senses: firstly, it is an open,
inter-manufacturer standard, allowing
common control of networking equipment,
regardless of the maker. Secondly, it
“opens the box” in the sense envisaged
by Watanabe–it is possible for the user
of OpenFlow equipment to get “under the
hood” and control the flow of data through
the network.
NEC saw this new approach to networks
as an opportunity to create new markets.
Iwata admits that NEC’s decision to go with
this new technology was “a bet, but it has
paid off.”
Out of this initiative came the
OpenFlow standard as described above,
to which NEC has added value with its
ProgrammableFlow® architecture providing
users with an integrated comprehensive
networking platform. Being the first to
commercialize OpenFlow products, NEC
has been able to bring to market a range
of equipment (switches, both hardware
and software, and a dedicated controller)
that provides users with the ability to
perform “on-the-fly” reconfiguration of
the networks through modification of the
network devices’ behavior. In addition to
hardware, the ProgrammableFlow® solution
includes an easy-to-use graphical interface,
allowing simplified intuitive planning and
implementation of changes to a network,
even when the network is spread across
different sites.
The advantages of SDN and the lead
that NEC enjoys in this field, have been
recognized by industry experts. “SDN
promises to remake networking, delivering
unprecedented network virtualization and
rich application-driven programmability
and agility,” says Rohit Mehra, VP Network
Infrastructure at IDC Corporation. “NEC has
demonstrated great leadership in OpenFlow-
CAPEX/OPEX reduction by ProgrammableFlow®
based SDN with its ProgrammableFlow®
networking technology, which provides fullfunction benefits to IT organizations looking
for the next generation of networking.”
Proven Customer Benefits
A major international ICT provider,
NTT Communications, is using
ProgrammableFlow® technology in this
way. Operating data centers around
the world providing cloud services, the
provider must be ready to reconfigure
the resources used by its customers on
an almost instant basis, together with
delivering a reliable, state-of-the-art service.
With ProgrammableFlow® technology, a
logical centralized controller incorporating
redundancy and robustness can reconfigure
a worldwide network to provide a client with
a virtual “data center” almost immediately.
ProgrammableFlow® technology brings
about considerable savings in capital
expenditure and operational expenses
(CAPEX and OPEX), as major logistics
operator Nippon Express has found, being
able to achieve substantial reductions in
both. Indeed, NEC estimates that for a
1,000-server data center, both capital and
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operational expenditure can be slashed by
50% compared to conventional networks.
Nippon Express has been able to cut its
network switch rack space requirements
from 32U to 10U, and thereby power
consumption, from 14kW to 2.5kW, and
perhaps most dramatically, has been able
to bring its network management in-house,
with the benefit that outsourcing services
were no longer required. Not only have
costs been reduced, but the time needed
to fail over following a network outage has
been cut from nearly one minute to one
second.
For Kanazawa University Hospital,
ProgrammableFlow® has brought other
benefits. The hospital is a constantly
changing network environment. In the
medical networking field, flexibility of ports
and switches is of paramount importance.
Equipment used for patient diagnosis and
treatment is frequently moved, and the
different departments using the equipment
have varied network security policies,
as do the different devices themselves.
Moving or adding such network-connected
equipment effectively was previously
extremely difficult. Now, through the
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implementation of ProgrammableFlow®,
when a medical device is connected to
the LAN, it is assigned to the appropriate
virtual network, and the appropriate policies
are automatically applied. This occurs
regardless of the LAN port to which the
device is connected, thus realizing
universal connectivity.
Typically, the “refresh cycle” for
networking hardware in an enterprise is
between three and five years. With an
open SDN architecture, networks can be
refreshed and their capabilities expanded
at any time, with substantial reductions
in CAPEX, and the cycle is broken.
Furthermore, since the network can be
dynamically reconfigured, it is easier for
the “new” network configuration to be
run, tested and debugged in parallel with
the existing network before going live
into production status. A software-defined
network can be modified at any time
there is an organizational change within
the enterprise. MACs (Moves, Adds and
Changes) applied to such a network need
not cause interruptions to the existing
network’s traffic flow.
VLANs in a data center using a
traditional silo model use “appliance
resources” such as firewalls, load balancers
and so on inefficiently, and hence there are
Atsushi Iwata, Ph.D.
Deputy General Manager
Cloud Systems Research Laboratories
“bumps” and “steps” in the capital costs
incurred through expansion as the number
of switches increases and the VLANs hit
the maximum device numbers (typically
2,000 or 4,000). In a ProgrammableFlow®
implementation, these infrastructure
appliances can be shared more easily,
meaning that not only is the total capital
expenditure reduced as the expansion
proceeds, but costs rise in a smooth
linear fashion, proportional to the
number of switches.
Hiroyuki Watanabe
General Manager
Enterprise Solutions Operations Unit
The Future is Open
By writing applications to run on
ProgrammableFlow® networks, it is
possible to create networks which will
optimize the enterprise’s investment in
the technology. Iwata looks forward to a
day when programs running on an open
architecture network provide the operators
with a system capable of discovering its
own capacity, analyzing its strengths and
weaknesses, and using intelligence-based
programs to work out optimal routes for the
traffic flowing through it.
Such an ultimate intelligent network
could use centralized control to automate
many network lifecycle management
functions: design; provisioning; operation
and failover recovery; monitoring; and
optimization of networking routing control.
NEC is helping to develop such networks,
by working with a wide variety of global
partners, and releasing into the public
domain some enhancements of the
OpenFlow standard.
Though Iwata sees data centers
providing co-hosting services as the current
market for NEC’s ProgrammableFlow®,
future users will be enterprise-level data
centers, and communications carriers. He is
sure that the latter will see benefits from the
savings and advantages to be realized from
the new technology.
As one example of such benefits, a
disaster or any other major event may
spike an increase in voice and SMS traffic
and a possible overload of the system as
callers reassure each other of their safety
and keep in contact with each other. Using
ProgrammableFlow® networking, a carrier’s
resources and bandwidth could be diverted
dynamically, away from media provision
services, and into the voice/texting services,
which then have sufficient capacity to handle
the increased demands.
“Although carriers are traditionally
understandably cautious when adopting new
ideas,” he says, “some are already in the
evaluation and test phases. Naturally, the
design of the OpenFlow controller allows
control of the legacy network until the whole
installation moves to the OpenFlow platform,
thereby consolidating the network control in
one appliance.”
Watanabe explains, “ProgrammableFlow®
solves so many problems, some of which our
customers are unaware of. We’re listening
to them, and based on their needs, we’re
using ProgrammableFlow® to develop and
provide solutions for them that exceed their
expectations.” ProgrammableFlow® can
meet these demands to provide solutions,
and thanks to the open architecture, also
meet future, as yet unknown, needs.
— Hugh Ashton
Learn more about NEC’s innovations at:
www.nec.com/sdnad
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ProgrammableFlow is a registered trademark of NEC Corporation in Japan and U.S.A.