Tags: OpenFlow controller

NEC awarded first Annual Software-Defined Networking Innovation Award from Search Networking

Posted by Bryan Williams on Posted in Straight Talk Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

NEC was honored to accept today the Network Innovation Award  from Search Networking.com, the first award ever given to a networking company for its work in the rapidly emerging Software-Defined Networking (SDN) arena.  In annoucing the award, Executive Editor Rivka Little commented“In the past year, many companies have begun to firm up their SDN plans, but one company made the quickest strides in getting innovative OpenFlow products to market – NEC Corporation of America.  So it is fitting that NEC is the first company to win a SearchNetworking.com Network Innovation Award in the category of Software-Defined Networking.”

Jeremy Hurley presenting award to Don ClarkJeremy Hurley, SearchNetworking.com Publisher, is shown here (left) presenting the Innovation honor to Don Clark, Director of Business Development for  the ProgrammableFlow® Open SDN product suite.  More than 400 engineering person years have been invested by NEC into this ground-breaking Software-Defined Networking solution, a commitment first begun in 2008 when NEC co-founded and helped fund The Clean Slate Lab at Stanford, the birthplace of the OpenFlow protocol.  First to market with a complete programmable networking solution in May of 2011, NEC currently offers a third version of its award-winning OpenFlow-based PF6800 controller.  In addition to the simplified and automated network originally introduced in 2011, Version 3 introduced end-to-end Quality of Service, scalability beyond  4,096 VLANs, advanced network automation and granular network management.  And just last week NEC participated with 20 other vendors at PlugFest, testing and demonstrating interoperability with multiple vendors including Broadcom, Brocade, Extreme, IBM and Juniper.

NEC openflow Networking Innovation AwardSDN marks a major change in the network landscape by moving the intelligence off proprietary routers and switches and into a centralized controller, where software enables you to design, deploy, monitor and manage the network from a single point.   The OpenFlow-based ProgrammableFlow network suite separates the control plane from the data plane, enabling this radical simplification and complete network-wide virtuallization.  Equally important, the  ProgrammableFlow Network Fabric delivers an open, standardized northbound API to enable applications to be readily added to the network and speeding service delivery and business agility.  These qualities were some of the benefits SearchNetworking editors saw in ProgrammableFlow Open SDN when they gave us the Networking Innovation Award.  We are proud to accept this honor.    To learn more about NEC’s ProgrammableFlow solution visit:  http://necam.com/pflow

 

 

 

Windows Server 2012: An opportunity for customers to take advantage of VM Mobility and Multi-tenancy

Posted by Bryan Williams on Posted in Straight Talk Tagged , , , , , ,

NEC has been working closely with Microsoft to make full use of the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Extensible Switch to integrate and deliver an OpenFlow-based Software Defined Network.  Some particularly impressive use-cases around automation, multi-tenancy, VM mobility, and security will be rolling out in conjunction with this new capability.  This blog post looks at two of these.

ProgrammableFlow Fabric defines multi-tenant virtual networks in which tenants are isolated at the network level. With true traffic isolation between tenants, end systems belonging to one tenant network cannot reach end systems belonging to another tenant network. At the same time, each tenant can define its own customized layer-2 or layer-3 network and utilize inter-tenant isolation to effectively create a secured slice of the underlying physical network.

“ProgrammableFlow Network Suite unifies the physical and virtual network policy, creating the perfect complement to the Software-Defined Networking capabilities built into Windows Server 2012,” Microsoft’s Sandeep Singhal, General Manager, Windows Networking, tells us.  “Built for the cloud, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V provides rich multi-tenancy and isolation capabilities.  The Hyper-V Extensible Switch enables NEC’s ProgrammableFlow Suite to provide an unified, end-to-end experience that is fully integrated into Windows.”

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Use Case 1: VM Mobility and consistent policy over Virtual & Physical Networks

NEC Openflow SolutionBefore September and the availability of Windows Server 2012, you had to configure your policy multiple times for both physical and virtual networks.  In addition, if you wanted to move a virtual machine, it would typically require a network administrator to make those programming adjustments on the network.  This is a time-consuming, expensive process, and often served as a bottleneck to your business.

In the new world of Windows Server 2012 and ProgrammableFlow® Networking, such moves and changes will be transparent, negating the programming requirement exists today —Valuable technical resources can focus on service delivery rather than configuration management.  As VMs move, they will be instantly recognized by the OpenFlow-based ProgrammableFlow controller and the network topology will be automatically updated.  And this is the really cool part:  Using the extension provided by Windows Server 2012, NEC converts the Hyper-V Extensible Switch into an OpenFlow enabled virtual ProgrammableFlow switch.  Enabling OpenFlow enables end to end network visibility and control. When you input your business policy into Windows Server 2012, ProgrammableFlow is able to read that policy and apply it – over both the virtual and the physical network.

With these capabilities, Windows 2012 Server users can roll out new applications, or make changes to your business priorities. Windows Server 2012 and ProgrammableFlow will be there to support you.

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Use Case 2:  Granular Security Policy Administration

A second use case addresses the increased sprawl of network appliances.  Using the flow control capabilities of ProgrammableFlow, network operators can redirect selected traffic flows into network appliances programmatically only as needed.  The result is fewer firewalls are required.  Even better, ProgrammableFlow works in tandem with Microsoft’s Hyper-V Network Virtualization to create a comprehensive Software-Defined Networking solution.

Faster processing.  Fewer bottlenecks.  More efficient use of resources.  Granular policy administration and prioritization of your network traffic are hallmarks of ProgrammableFlow networking.  We look forward to delivering it to you.

Contact your NEC representative today to learn more about these use cases, or how you can leverage ProgrammableFlow OpenFlow Network Fabric in your Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V installation.  Learn more by clicking here today: http://necam.com/pflow

 

SDN leadership recognized with Innovation Award from SearchNetworking; Plus ProgrammableFlow 3.0

Posted by Bryan Williams on Posted in Straight Talk Tagged , , , , , , ,

Summer for the ProgrammableFlow® software defined networking (SDN) team has been anything but dull.  Hard at work to maintain and grow even further our leadership position in SDN and OpenFlow, we released Version 3 of the ProgrammableFlow controller last week, featuring end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) from a central point of control, and significantly expanding ProgrammableFlow scalability.

SearchNetworking SDN Award NEC OpenFlowSearchNetworking SDN Award NEC OpenFlowAnd clearly our efforts have not gone unnoticed.  SearchNetworking announced last week they had awarded NEC ProgrammableFlow network suite with their first ever Innovation Award for Software Defined Networking.  With all of the buzz around SDN and OpenFlow, it is especially rewarding to read comments from SearchNetworking Executive Editor Rivka Gewirtz Little “..plenty of companies were offering SDN visions, but very few had actual products.   In the past year, many companies have begun to firm up their SDN plans, but one company made the quickest strides in getting innovative OpenFlow products to market – NEC Corporation of America.”

Kudos to the ProgrammableFlow engineering team!  With over 400 person years invested to date in OpenFlow and SDN, ProgrammableFlow’s substantial benefits of a fully virtualized network improving the rate of return across IT investments are increasingly apparent.

Version 3 continues to strengthen our position; with more proof points to support improved resource utilization and increased business agility.  Customer NTT Communications has already deployed the PF6800 ProgrammableFlow Controller as part of their new global “BizHosting Enterprise Cloud” service platform.  BizHosting uses OpenFlow technologies to provide borderless cloud services that enable integrated operations of numerous data centers both domestically and internationally.  This global scale ICT infrastructure is flexibly controlled and takes only a few minutes to remotely complete connections between data centers that traditionally took several days.

NTT is a Board member of the Open Networking Foundation.  As you know, the ONF is the organization responsible for the continued evolution of the OpenFlow standard.  NEC was a founding member, too, of the ONF and continues our active involvement.

NEC_SDN_QoS_Policy_ProgrammableFlowAs I mentioned, Version 3 of NEC’s ProgrammableFlow OpenFlow Fabric features end-to-end Quality of Service design and network management-all from the centralized console or API integrated into the ProgrammableFlow controller. This capability, unique to ProgrammableFlow and illustrated here, was extremely well received when we covered the enhancements with industry watchers.  They instantly recognized the opportunity for significant operational time-savings, as enterprises and data centers offload configuration work to the automation of ProgrammableFlow.  Network administrators can now re-deploy their time and skills to strategic projects, again positioning the network to be more fully responsive to the needs of the business.  And with Version 3 we are deploying a Web API using REST protocol.

We believe an essential element of Software Defined Networking is this open API.  The API provided with our Programmable Network Fabric will enable customers to take advantage of a new ecosystem of network services and applications envisioned in the future – very similar to the way Google’s Android is able to leverage 3rd party applications now that are written to this  standardized interface.  The OpenFlow protocol, standardized today by ONF and backed by dozens of leading customers and networking vendors, provides a platform for this standardization.

Finally, many customers will be happy to hear that Version 3 will enable them to scale based on their need.  With this release, depending on usage, ProgrammableFlow can now control as many as 100 switches, and operators can build networks with more than 4,096 VLAN ID configurations.

And don’t forget we have our new virtual switch available now for early adopters-delivering SDN to Microsoft Windows Server 2012 customers.  If you are interested in piloting this exciting new technology, or Version 3 of ProgrammableFlow, contact your NEC account manager today.  More information is available too at www.necam.com/pflow.