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Light Reading runs down your choices for SDN controllers.
18 Min Read
The controller is the logical control center of the SDN network, communicating with switches via its "southbound" interface to provide networking instructions and communicating with applications via its "northbound" interface.
In SDN's purest form, the controller has all the intelligence: Switches are dumb, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) devices that are managed by the controllers.
Operators that find this pure approach too rigorous can instead opt for an overlay, espoused by Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) and other vendors. In the overlay approach, the SDN network runs as a software layer on top of existing networks. Switches can be either COTS or proprietary.
SDN controller deployments are mostly to be found in data centers currently, but they have also been deployed in wide area enterprise networks and are creeping into wide area service provider networks too as carrier-class capabilities come to market and business cases are identified.
SDN, in theory, allows networks to be programmable, flexible and cheaper to run. It's foundational to the New IP -- the transformation of carrier networks from cost centers to revenue drivers delivering value to customers. (See Introducing 'The New IP' .)
Light Reading took a quick look at the SDN controller marketplace and compiled a list of vendors and open source organizations that are offering, or have developed, SDN controllers or the code that can be used to develop one (in the case of the open source community).
The list is split into two: vendors with commercial products; and the open source projects/organizations that are engaging the wider community to develop SDN controller software. Many of the commercial vendor controllers are based on open source code, particularly that developed by OpenDaylight , a collaborative project set up by the Linux Foundation .
Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD) recently threw its weight behind open source SDN, introducing the Vyatta Controller based on OpenDaylight. (See Brocade Debuts OpenDaylight SDN Controller.)
In the commercial marketplace, VMWare and Cisco are the two giants competing for control. Cisco's SDN weapon is its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), while VMware's arms itself with its NSX software.
Cisco and VMware support the philosophy that intelligence should be in the software, but Cisco's proposition supports its own proprietary hardware that shares network management responsibilities with its controller. VMware runs as a layer atop other companies' networking hardware.
Other companies fighting for SDN market share have mostly developed products that are based on the OpenFlow protocol and its associated networking philosophy. OpenFlow is the vanguard of the pure SDN approach.
And it's not just the vendors that are developing SDN controllers: AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is developing a home-grown SDN controller. (See AT&T Working on Home-Grown SDN Controller for Later in 2014 .)
Want to know more about SDN? Visit Light Reading's SDN architectures content channel.
One of the major considerations for data center and network operators looking to deploy SDN controllers is whether they are truly interoperable and multivendor: One of the main promises of SDN is that it will free operators from vendor lock-in.
Multivendor support is a big deal, notes Roz Roseboro, senior analyst at Heavy Reading . "Operators don't want to be tied down. They don't want the choice of controllers to influence what switches they can use. They want to mix and match with whatever integration work is required," Roseboro says. Operators want to be able to work with the networking hardware they have, without ripping anything out.
Operators also need to consider whether to adopt a centralized or distributed approach, says Roseboro, who is preparing a report on SDN controllers. "There are some who believe there should be a master controller that watches over everything, and others who believe some of the intelligence should be on the hypervisor so it can make local decisions," she says.
So, here is our list of SDN controllers. If there are others out there, we can easily add them in as they emerge. Let us know about additions and updates using the comment board below.
Next Page: Commercial Controllers
— Mitch Wagner, 
, West Coast Bureau Chief, Light Reading. Got a tip about SDN or NFV? Send it to [email protected].
Commercial Controllers
Company: Active Broadband Networks
Controller: Active Resource Controller. For more information, see this page.
About: The ARC is designed to provide real-time control of NFV infrastructure, IP flow telemetry data for service and application visibility, big data technology for managing service personalization, and dynamic service profiling and control mechanisms to automatically take action in response to changing network conditions and service utilization based on customer entitlements. ARC is a component of Active Broadband Networks Inc. 's Software-Defined Broadband Network Gateway (SD-BNG).
Find out more:
Company: Adara Networks
Controllers: Sky, a distributed OpenFlow-based SDN controller (see this page for more details), and Horizon, a "meta-controller" designed for SDN management in multi-vendor, multi-protocol networks, whether virtual or physical. See this page for more information.
About: Adara Networks has developed a suite of applications, including its controllers, that provide every aspect of a software-defined computing and networking environment.
Find out more:
Company: Big Switch Networks
Controller: Big Network Controller, an OpenFlow-based SDN controller based on Project Floodlight open source specifications. See this page for more information.
About: Big Switch Networks is pitching its controller as part of a broader package of capabilities, its Open SDN Suite, for data center operators.
Find out more:
Big Switch CEO: We're Not for Sale
Company: Brocade Communications Systems
Controller: Vyatta Controller, an open source controller based on OpenDaylights specs. See this page for more information.
About: Built on the OpenDaylight code, the Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD) Vyatta controller is designed to provide network operators with the flexibility of programmable networks and provide a common platform for multi-vendor networks and virtual machines.
Find out more:
Brocade Debuts OpenDaylight SDN Controller
Company: Calient Technologies
Controller: Optical Topology Management Controller. Available for testing from January 2015.
About: Built on the OpenDaylight code, the Calient Technologies Inc. Optical Topology Management Controller is designed to allow data center operators to reconfigure extremely large data transfers (elephant flows) from packet to optical circuit switching.
Find out more:
Calient Controller Aims to Tame 'Elephant' Flows
Company: Ciena
Controller: The Ciena Corp. (NYSE: CIEN) Agility Multilayer WAN Controller is another based on OpenDaylight specs. See this page for more information.
About: Ciena's controller is designed to allow carriers to optimize wide-area networks to meet the unpredictable bandwidth demands of enterprise and cloud customers.
Find out more:
Ciena Develops an SDN Controller
Company: Cisco Systems
Controller: The Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC). See this page for more information.
About: The APIC automates and manages Cisco's Application Centric Infrastructure SDN architecture.
Find out more:
Cisco's ACI Gets Physical With SDN
Company: Cyan Inc.
Controller: Blue Planet SDN controller. For more information, see this page.
About: Introduced in December, 2012, the Blue Planet SDN platform has been deployed in more than 154 networks around the globe including well publicized deployments at Colt, KVH, and NTT Americas. Blue Planet incorporates a WAN SDN Controller for multi-layer and multi-vendor automation, path computation, visualization, provisioning, management, and control. This can be paired with Blue Planet’s NFV and virtual resource orchestration capabilities to drive new virtualized services.
Find out more:
Company: CloudGenix
Controller: The Software-Defined Enterprise WAN (SDEwan) is in beta mode. See this page for more information.
About: CloudGenix Inc. is a startup that is developing a controller to extend enterprise SDN into the WAN.
Find out more:
Startup Launches With $9M to Bring SDN to WANs
Next Page: More Commercial Controllers
Commercial Controllers (continued)
Company: ConteXtream
Controller: The ContexNet controller offers "standards-based extensibility using LISP, OpenFlow, OpenDaylight, NV03, OpenStack and more." See this page for more information.
About: ConteXtream has developed two separate applications, ContexMap and ContexControl, that combine to make an SDN controller.
Find out more:
ConteXtream Claims a Carrier SDN Coup
Company: Coriant
Controller: The Transcend SDN Solution, which includes the Transport Controller, Packet Controller and SDN Network Orchestrator. See this page for more information.
About: Coriant has developed an Orchestrator based on OpenDaylight open source code and uses that to manage not only its two controllers but also third-party controllers.
Find out more:
Coriant Intros SDN, NFV Portfolio
Company: CPlane Networks
Controller: The CPlane Networks Controller. See this page for more information.
About: CPlane Networks has developed a controller for OpenStack cloud infrastructure deployments.
Company: Dell
Controller: Active Fabric Controller. See this page for more information.
About: The Dell Technologies (Nasdaq: DELL) software is designed for enterprise OpenStack deployments and uses OpenFlow to interface with data center switches.Find out more:
Dell Unveils Data Center Switch, Active Fabric Controller
Company: Extreme Networks
Controller: The Extreme OneController is based on OpenDaylight specs. See this page for more information.
About: Extreme Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: EXTR) has developed an OpenDaylight controller to help customers migrate existing networks to SDN. Extreme, in partnership with US Ignite, launched the Extreme SDN Innovation Challenge that will award prizes for best applications that "leverage" the Extreme platform. The contest runs until May 2015.
Find out more:Extreme Unveils OpenDaylight SDN Controller
Company: Hewlett-Packard (HP)
Controller: The HP Virtual Application Networks SDN Controller. See this page for more information.
About: HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ)'s controller is a unified control point for OpenFlow networks but can also support other open programmable interfaces.
Find out more:
Company: Huawei Technologies
Controller: Smart Network Controller, also known as the Smart OpenFlow Controller.
About: The Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. controller works with the vendor's Netmatrix SDN orchestration system, and supports OpenFlow, PCE, Netconf and BGP.
Find out more:
Next Page: More Commercial Controllers
Commercial Controllers (continued)
Company: IBM
Controller: IBM SDN for Virtual Environments. See this page for more information.
About: IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM)'s controller supports OpenFlow-based physical networks.
Find out more:
SDN Powers AT&T, IBM On-Demand Cloud Connections
Company: Inocybe Technologies
Controller: Infrastructure Controller. See this page for more information.
About: The Inocybe Technologies controller combines SDN and cloud controller, based on OpenDaylight and OpenStack respectively, in one platform.
Company: Juniper Networks
Controller: NorthStar and OpenContrail. For more on Northstar, see this page and for more on Contrail SDN Controller, see this white paper.
About: Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) has two SDN controllers: its home-grown NorthStar and the Contrail SDN Controller, developed from the acquisition of Contrail Systems. The Contrail controller components are also available as an open source option via OpenContrail.
Find out more:
Company: Metaswitch Networks
Controller: Gulfstream SDN Controller. For more information, see this page.
About: Metaswitch Networks ' Gulfstream controller is designed for network access and hyperscale data center infrastructures. It supports standards including OpenFlow 1.3, REST and NETCONF, and familiar CLI interfaces. It combines opens source and Metaswitch proprietary code.
Find out more:
Company: NEC America
Controller: ProgrammableFlow SDN Controller. See this page for more information. It also has a Unified Network Coordinator, which can control multiple SDN controllers. See this page for more information.
About: NEC America Inc. was the first company to launch a commercial controller based on the OpenFlow protocol. Now it also has its "controller of controllers," the Unified Network Coordinator (aka UNIVERGE PF6800 Network Coordinator), designed to help expand OpenFlow domains both inside and outside the data center. The Unified Network Controller manages OpenFlow controllers, which in turn manage switches.
Find out more:
NEC Intros SDN 'Controller of Controllers'
Company: Nuage (an Alcatel-Lucent venture)
Controller: Virtual Services Controller. See this page for more information.
About: Provides the control plane for Nuage's Virtualized Services Platform.
Find out more:
Company: Pica8
Controller: Pica8 Inc. supports the RYU OpenFlow open source controller. See this page for more information.
About: The RYU OpenFlow open source controller is also supported by Japanese giant NTT Group (NYSE: NTT) and was developed by its labs unit. Pica8 offers the open source controller as part of its SDN Starter Kit.
Find out more:
Can Starter Kits Jumpstart SDN?
Company: Plexxi
Controller: Plexxi Control. See this page for more information.
About: Plexxi 's data center controller "dynamically optimizes the network based on the workload requirements."
Find out more:
Plexxi's SDN Really Flattens the Data Center
Company: VMware
Controller: NSX Controller.
About: The NSX Controller is built into VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW)'s NSX SDN platform and is not available as a standalone product.
Find out more:
Cisco & VMware Are Apple & Google of SDN
Next Page: Open Source SDN Controller Projects
Open Source SDN Controller Projects
Organization: NOXRepo
Controllers: NOX & POX. See this page for more on NOX, and this page for more on POX.
About: NOXRepo claims that NOX is the original OpenFlow controller, and facilitates the development of fast C++ controllers on Linux. POX supports Python on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, targeted largely at research and education.
Organization: ON.Lab
Controller: SDN Open Network Operating System (ONOS). See this page for more information.
About: The Open Networking Lab (ON.Lab), a non-profit organization founded by SDN inventors and leaders from Stanford University and UC Berkeley, set up the ONOS Project to develop open source SDN tools.
Find out more:
ON.Lab Intros Open Source SDN OS
Organization: OpenContrail
Controller: OpenContrail Controller. See this page for more information.
About: The open source, Juniper-sponsored OpenContrail architecture includes a "a logically centralized but physically distributed" SDN controller, virtual router, analytics engine, and published northbound APIs. (Juniper also supports OpenDaylight.)
Find out more:
Juniper Gives OpenDaylight Some Loving
Organization: OpenDaylight Project
Controllers: Helium is the latest release: see this page for more information. The initial release is Hydrogen: see this page for further details.
About: A Linux Foundation collaborative project, OpenDaylight is developing an open platform for network programmability enabling SDN and NFV networks of any size and scale.
Find out more:
OpenDaylight: Vendor SDN Aids Open Effort
Controller: Open Mul. For more information, see this page.
About: Open Mul is designed for performance and reliability, flexibility, and easiness to learn. It's an OpenFow SDN controller platform with a C-language-based multi-threaded infrastructure at its core, and a multi-level northbound interface for hosting applications. Mul means "base" or "root" in Sanskrit, and is pronounced to rhyme with "school."
Organization: Project Floodlight
Controller: Floodlight Open SDN Controller. See this page for more information.
About: Launched by Big Switch Networks, Floodlight is an OpenFlow, Apache-licensed SDN controller.
Find out more:
Big Switch Intros Open-Source Switches
Controller: Ryu. For more information, see this page.
About: Ryu is a software defined networking framework with a well-defined API designed to make it easy for developers to create new network management and control applications. It supports standard protocols including OpenFlow, Netconf, and OF-config. Ryu means "flow" in Japanese, and is pronounced to rhyme with "see you."
Organization: Stanford University
Controller: Beacon. See this page for more information.
About: Cross-platform, modular, Java-based OpenFlow controller that supports both event-based and threaded operation.
Controller: Trema. For more information, see this page.
About: Trema is a framework for developing OpenFlow controllers in Ruby and C.
To go back to the introduction, click here.
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