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Evolving Brocade technology with OpenFlow and HyperEdge

Evolving Brocade technology with OpenFlow and HyperEdge

Brocades support of OpenFlow underlines speed as


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Brocade: Some OpenFlow switches cant operate at linerate speeds Brocade HyperEdge: Manage a campus network as one giant switch stack

a distinguishing factor in their software-defined network (SDN) strategy. While Brocades SDN strategy doesnt focus as much on campus, HyperEdge (being rolled out in 2013) is a software upgrade that Brocade will use to simplify operations within the campus LAN. This expert E-Guide dives into the ins and outs of OpenFlow and discusses the benefits of HyperEdge. Brocade: Some OpenFlow switches cant operate at linerate speeds
By Shamus McGillicuddy, News Director In outlining its software-defined networking strategy Brocade has exposed a dirty little secret about some commercial OpenFlow switches: Once OpenFlow is turned on, some competing switches no longer operate at line rate. If this is true, network engineers will have to dig deeper into OpenFlow switch specifications to determine actual speed. Brocade highlighted speed as a differentiating factor in its software-defined networking strategy. That strategy includes support for OpenFlow on the MLX router series with MLX version 5.4, which can move packets at 100 gigabit line-rate speeds. "We've implemented OpenFlow in our programmable hardware accelerators on a line-card-by-line-card basis. If you've taken a shortcut and enabled OpenFlow so that it is just operating on your management processor -- in other words not in hardware -- then you have to run all your packets through that management processor. Those things are relatively low-performing," said Keith Stewart, Brocade's director of product management. In this case, with OpenFlow turned on, performance drops from gigabits- to megabits-persecond, he added.

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Evolving Brocade technology with OpenFlow and HyperEdge

Which vendors have troubled OpenFlow switches? Forrester Research senior analyst Andre Kindness confirmed the speed issue and the idea that the problems are linked to OpenFlow switches that rely on software implementation of the protocol. "Its a dirty little secret in the industry," said Kindness. "Take a look at the switches that have come out, even HP's switches. They are supported by firmware but not really running through the ASIC [in all cases]. If it's not hardware, it's not line-speed." HP Networking does implement OpenFlow in its ASICs, but due to hardware limitations common among many vendors, OpenFlow controllers can overwhelm those ASICs by sending more rules to a switch than it can fit in its flow processing tables. When that happens, those extra flow rules spill over and are handled in software instead. This slows down the switch. "The flexibility and power of the OpenFlow protocol allows for very large types of flow processing matches and actions; as such, there are possible cases in which not all of these are processed at line rate in every situation," said Charles Clark, distinguished technologist, HP Networking, in a statement. "HP's OpenFlow implementation has been optimized to accelerate those aspects of the OpenFlow protocol that are needed to deliver solution performance and scalability." Brocade claims that its implementation of OpenFlow on the MLX does not suffer from this problem. To get line-rate performance out of Openflow switches, vendors must implement OpenFlow in their ASICs, not their network operating systems, said Nick Lippis, CEO at consultancy Lippis Enterprises. "I havent done the testing, but I do know there are a few [OpenFlow switches] out there that" dont operate at line-rate speeds, Lippis said. The whole issue could go away, however, when merchant silicon vendors start supporting OpenFlow on their own chips by the end of this year.

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Brocade: Some OpenFlow switches cant operate at linerate speeds Brocade HyperEdge: Manage a campus network as one giant switch stack

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Evolving Brocade technology with OpenFlow and HyperEdge

Brocade's software-defined networking strategy Beyond speed, Brocade's software-defined networking strategy uniquely focuses on wide area networks (WANs) and service provider networks rather than data center and campus networking. That's why Brocade's initial OpenFlow support is available on the MLX router. Google revealed last month that it had built a multi-data-center, software-defined WAN using OpenFlow. Most other vendors are more focused on using OpenFlow in the data center even though the technology is not fully baked. Meanwhile, carriers that are focused on heavy traffic can begin using the technology today. "Carriers are hot on this because it allows them to go from dumb pipes to offering different levels of SLAs," Kindness said. "Today they offer SLAs, but they can't really guarantee it and give definitive variations between customers. They can start doing that with what Brocade is opening up." Brocade's software-defined networking strategy also encompasses a broad range of technologies and vendor partnerships. Brocade unveiled a formal relationship with NEC, using its ProgrammableFlow OpenFlow controller. IBM has a similar relationship with NEC. Brocade will also support network virtualization via overlay protocols, such as VXLAN, NVGRE and STT. Additionally, it will provide integration into various cloud orchestration and management systems, such as Cloudstack, OpenStack, Microsoft System Center and VMware vCloud Director. OpenFlow infrastructure in hybrid mode With Brocade's OpenFlow implementation, network engineers will be able to operate MLX routers in OpenFlow hybrid mode, allowing the use of a combination of OpenFlow and traditional forwarding techniques on the same hardware. "In a lot of other cases, when you turn on OpenFlow, you turn off all traditional forwarding. We've heard from a lot of customers that baseline

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Brocade: Some OpenFlow switches cant operate at linerate speeds Brocade HyperEdge: Manage a campus network as one giant switch stack

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Evolving Brocade technology with OpenFlow and HyperEdge

forwarding works just fine. What they want to do is layer services on top of it that offer value," said Stewart.

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Brocade: Some OpenFlow switches cant operate at linerate speeds Brocade HyperEdge: Manage a campus network as one giant switch stack

"Some of the research networks [with which] we have been working very closely, are interested in running a traditional backbone in hybrid mode, where traditional forwarding works like it always does, with BGP, OSPF, ISIS, but then you can allow researchers to provide experimental network applications that run via OpenFlow on that production environment on a subset of traffic." Hybrid OpenFlow mode will hold appeal beyond research networks as well, Kindness said. "If you have 20 to 80 applications, are you worried about all of those, or are you most concerned with maybe one or two that are a business priority?" he said, adding that in hybrid mode, enterprises can allow most applications to run via traditional forwarding while using software-defined networking to prioritize those select critical applications.

Brocade HyperEdge: Manage a campus network as one giant switch stack


By Shamus McGillicuddy, News Director For years, network engineers have relied on the switch stack in network wiring closets to simplify network operations. But now Brocade claims it can simplify operations even further by replacing the traditional switch stack with a new technology that essentially turns the entire campus LAN into one giant stack. HyperEdge, due out in the first half of 2013 as a software upgrade on Brocades FCX and ICX switches, is an alternative paradigm to the traditional switch stack that provides a single point of management for all HyperEdgecompatible switches, according to Joe Ammirato, Brocades senior director of product management. This technology establishes a single management IP address for all the switches in the network. This way, an engineer can log

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Evolving Brocade technology with OpenFlow and HyperEdge

into one switch in the HyperEdge network, and configure the entire network instantly in CLI. HyperEdge will initially only apply to access layer switches, but Ammirato hinted that Brocade will eventually extend the technology to other layers of the network. Today you have to touch each piece of equipment [or each stack], said Scott McDowell, telecommunications network supervisor with Yadtel Group, a North Carolina-based rural service provider. With [HyperEdge], with one single command you can make a change over the whole entire network. It also enables easy upgrades and would reduce human error. We do everything by command line, and if just one piece is broken, it can take it all down. Are the days of the switch stack numbered? Stacked switches made individual wiring closet management much simpler, but as the number of those wiring closets has grown, a new level of complexity has crept into networks. Stackables had their place in businesses but you have had to manage those stacks individually, said Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst with ZK Research. With stackable switches, you gave up the ability to manage things from a central location for cost effectiveness. You could telnet into individual stacks, but you couldnt manage them as a single network entity. Lets say you want to add a new ACL; you would have to configure each stack individually. If the network is big enough, that can take days. Because of this centralized management, HyperEdge will dramatically change how enterprises manage their access layer. Lets say you have 100 stacks throughout your entire university campus and one of the elements in one of those stacks fails. With the HyperEdge domain, you can do an RMA [Return Merchandise Authorization], remove that failed switch, and plug in the new switch. When you plug it into the HyperEdge domain, it gets automatically discovered and the master configuration gets pushed to it, said Ammirato.

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Brocade: Some OpenFlow switches cant operate at linerate speeds Brocade HyperEdge: Manage a campus network as one giant switch stack

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Evolving Brocade technology with OpenFlow and HyperEdge

New entry level ICX switches: For switch stack today, HyperEdge tomorrow Brocade also announced two new stackable switches that will eventually support HyperEdge: the ICX 6450 and ICX 6430. These switches are available in 24- and 48-port Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) models, with or without enhanced Power over Ethernet (PoE+). The ICX 6430 features four additional 1 GbE ports for uplinks and stacking. The ICX 6450 has four 1/10 GbE uplink and stacking ports. These switches will begin shipping later this month. Ammirato didnt offer specific pricing, but he claimed the baseline ICX 6430 will cost 30 to 50% less than Cisco Catalyst 2960, depending on which features an enterprise needs on the 2960. For instance, stacking is default on the ICX switches but not on the Catalyst 2960. HyperEdge changes lifecycle management of stackable switches HyperEdge technology also allows engineers to mix and match individual switches without a full rip and replace. In a traditional switch stack, all the elements must be identical. So if the features and horsepower of a stack cant support the evolving needs of an enterprise, a network engineer will have to rip and replace the entire stack. You may buy an entry level, stackable device that just does Layer because that's all you think you need in your access layer -- no multicast, no IPv6, Ammirato said. With HyperEdge, you can mix those basic, entry level stackables with premium stackables that have advanced features like multicast, virtual route forwarding, or any other networking features that require more processing power. This approach could allow enterprises to extend the life of those entry-level stackable switches. It also prevents them from having to overprovision, Ammirato said. For instance, a hospital might have a technology plan that anticipates the deployment of HD video conferencing within a few years. Rather than provision for those services years in advance, engineers can install entry-level ICX 6430s today, and mix in the higher-powered ICX 6610 to support video a couple years later.

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Brocade: Some OpenFlow switches cant operate at linerate speeds Brocade HyperEdge: Manage a campus network as one giant switch stack

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Evolving Brocade technology with OpenFlow and HyperEdge

McDowell has Brocade infrastructure installed in Yadtels service provider network, and is testing the new ICX 6430 as a potential enterprise closet switch. HyperEdge, he says, should extend the life of switches like the 6430. I could see that piece of equipment sitting in our network for 10-plus years, while the way the industry works today, the life of equipment is three or four years. With HyperEdge you can mix and match, McDowell said.

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Brocade: Some OpenFlow switches cant operate at linerate speeds Brocade HyperEdge: Manage a campus network as one giant switch stack

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Evolving Brocade technology with OpenFlow and HyperEdge

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Brocade: Some OpenFlow switches cant operate at linerate speeds Brocade HyperEdge: Manage a campus network as one giant switch stack

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