OpenDaylight Project Releases Software to Simplify SDN

During the OpenDaylight Summit in Santa Clara this week, IBM announced a new unified network controller based on OpenDaylight technology and the OpenDaylight Project launched an open source platform to advance Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). The event conversation can be followed on Twitter hashtag #ODSummit.

OpenDaylight - Hydrogen Release

OpenDaylight is an open platform for network programmability to enable SDN and create a solid foundation for NFV for networks at any size and scale. The project announced its first open source software release, "Hydrogen" at the conference. Hydrogen is the first simultaneous release of OpenDaylight delivering three different editions to help a wide array of users get up and running as quickly as possible- Base Edition, Virtualization Edition and Service Provider Edition.

“OpenDaylight formed with the goal of tackling one of IT’s toughest challenges: simplifying network management,” said David Meyer, Technical Steering Committee chair, OpenDaylight. “This first release is a great step forward and the community is already looking to build on its work to address a variety of additional capabilities and features in subsequent releases that are being discussed at the first OpenDaylight Summit this week.”

Key features included in each Hydrogen edition include a multi-protocol SDN controller Service Abstraction Layer (SAL), OpenFlow plugin, OpenFlow Protocol Library, Open vSwitch Database configuration and management protocol support, and Java-based NETCONF and YANG tooling for OpenDaylight projects.

“We are seeing new OpenDaylight implementations and solutions coming to the forefront every day,” said Neela Jacques, executive director, OpenDaylight. “All signs point to 2014 being a key year for the project as we continue to grow the community, build the architecture and engage with organizations and end users who want to accelerate the path to SDN and NFV.”

IBM Delivers Unified Network Controller

IBM introduced a new unified network controller based on OpenDaylight technology designed to get organizations up and running fast on Software Defined Networks. Designed to accelerate the process of setting up SDNs, the new IBM Software Defined Network for Virtual Environments (SDN VE) includes open source components and interfaces from the OpenDaylight Project, as well as with support for OpenStack platform that enables organizations to integrate their SDNs into private and public clouds.

“It generally takes days to re-provision a network,” said Robert M. Cannistra, Senior Professional Lecturer of Computer Science and Information Technology, at Marist College, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. IBM has been working closely with the SDN Innovation Lab at the college for the past year. “The solution we’re developing with IBM and the SDN VE is designed to cut that down to under an hour or literally minutes by allowing a data center operator to move data and applications to a safe data center from a remote location using a tablet or smartphone.”

The SDN VE consists of the unified controller, virtual switches for creating overlays, gateways to non-SDN environments and open interfaces for application integration. SDN VE enables network administrators to achieve greater enterprise performance, scalability and security, and address ever-changing business needs by speeding up network provisioning from days to hours. IBM SDN VE availability is planned for this quarter.

“Our goal is to take advantage of the openness of the OpenDaylight platform and deliver that advantage to clients by collaborating with other developers to establish an ecosystem of interoperable network applications and services,” said Dr. Inder Gopal, IBM vice president of System Networking Development. “The cooperation needed to realize the benefits of SDN is only possible within an open framework, and IBM is pleased to provide a holistic solution for new and existing networks.”