Google Leads New SDN Charge

Google is pushing forward a new generation of software-defined networking, as the lead player in a new open source group within the Open Networking Foundation, which originally launched SDN. Key to the future of that group, called Stratum, is seed code from Google, and four newly defined interfaces that will replace OpenFlow, the original version of SDN.

Those four new interfaces address some of OpenFlow's limitations and allow full lifecycle management of SDN, including the ability to more easily swap out white boxes and upgrade systems. All of this is based on what Google learned from aggressively deploying SDN and operating that network for the last five to seven years, says Timon Sloane, vice president of standards and membership for the Open Networking Foundation .

"We think this is ushering in a new era of SDN interfaces that live up to the potential of 'software-defined' in SDN and so we think that is a big deal from that perspective," Sloane says. "The new interfaces are able to provide complete lifecycle control and management of the devices. We are essentially building on the success of OpenFlow; we have learned from the work around OpenFlow and we have incorporated those learnings."

ONF is also expecting this updated version of SDN to fuel a booming white box market, and greater innovation of software apps as well. To read more details on what they announced, check out this story on our Light Reading sister site.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading