A Guide to SDN: Building DevOps for Networks

The networking community is making an increasing amount of noise about software-defined networking (SDN). In an attempt to clarify SDN's increasingly nebulous value proposition, this talk makes the case that software-defined networking simply applies sorely needed, well-known, and standard principles of good software design to the network. So, by asking "what would a programmer do?" to solve network problems, we can derive and make concrete all of SDN's real-world value propositions including improved automation through documented well-structured APIs, higher uptime with automated testing, benefits of refactoring the control/data plane relationship, and increased modularity of network functions. Throughout the talk I will substantiate this claim with real-world examples from my time as a network admin, my work in standards bodies like the Open Networking Foundation, and customer stories from my current day job. Finally, I'll conclude with the point that while network and server admins have historically had disjoint skill sets, SDN presents an opportunity for the two to meet in the middle with a DevOp-style control of both domains.

Rob leads standardization and controller software architecture at Big Switch, where he developed and evangelized the emerging OpenFlow standard and network virtualization. He is the current Chair of the ONF’s Architecture & Framework Working Group and all Northbound API activity and was vice-chair for the ONF Testing & Interoperability Working Group. Rob prototyped the first OpenFlow-based network hypervisor, the “FlowVisor,” allowing production and experimental traffic to safely co-exist on the same physical network, and is involved in various standards efforts and partner and customer engagements. Rob holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park.