Explore Networks Inside the Cloud—SDN

Cloud computing defines network resources as needing to be “rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” (Mell & Grance, 2011), As cloud networks developed, it was clear that further virtualization of network devices such as switches and routers was needed.

This led to what is known as software-defined networking (SDN) technology, enabling programmatic interfaces to control functions of these devices. You know that it will be important for management to understand how SDN supports cloud deployments like BallotOnline’s, so it will be a key part of your technical report.

Instead of manually programming network devices to configure a LAN, cloud management systems using SDN can set these devices up to forward packets to particular destinations by “calling” SDN APIs (application programming interfaces – libraries of software routines). This allows for the creation of virtual networks in the cloud by software.

The most popular SDN standard is OpenFlow by the Open Networking Foundation. OpenFlow switches include SDN controllers, which maintain flow tables to control forwarding of IP datagrams, and they can learn routes as IP packets when particular source and destination addresses arrive.

References

Mell, P., & Grance, T. (2011). SP 800-145: The NIST definition of cloud computing. Retrieved from https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-1…

Software-Defined Network Discussion

Discuss what software-defined networking is and what networking challenges it addresses. What is the role of OpenFlow protocol? Describe how BallotOnline could benefit from SDN in its cloud deployment.