Juniper’s Vision for SDN Enables Network Innovation

The importance of the network continues to grow and innovation in the network needs to support new businesses models, and drive social and economic change. SDN will help address challenges currently faced by the network as it evolves to support business applications. It is worthwhile to step back and determine what the big-picture problem is to be solved. SDN is about adding value and solving a problem that has not been solved. It is about helping network operators to combine best-of-breed networking equipment with SDN control to facilitate cost effective networks that provide new business opportunities is key to Juniper’s strategy. I’d like to elaborate on a few key points.

Juniper’s Vision For The New Network And Software-Defined Networking Are Aligned
I’ve talked in previous blogs about Juniper’s New Network Platform Architecture. Juniper is delivering the New Network to increase the rate of innovation, streamline network operating costs through automation, and reduce overall capital expenses. Legacy networks have grown large and complex. This has stifled innovation and made networks costly to build and maintain. Both the New Network and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are about removing complexity, treating the network itself as a platform, and shifting the emphasis from maintenance to innovation.

SDN provides an abstracted, logical view of the network with externalized software-based control and reduced control points for better network control and simplified network operations. Juniper’s vision for SDN includes bi-directional interaction between the network and applications and a real-time feedback loop to ensure an optimal outcome for all elements and a predictable experience for users. This capability is transparent allowing customers to augment their existing network infrastructures to be SDN-enabled.

Juniper is an Industry Leader In The Software-Defined Networking Space
Software-defined networking is in its formative years. Juniper believes that innovations like SDN require active leadership, and so we have been engaged with the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), are a founding member of the Open Networking Research Center (ONRC), a Board member of US Ignite, and have created our own OpenLab to help drive industry collaboration around The New Network.

Juniper’s Software-Defined Networking Leadership Has Already Yielded Tangible Results
In 2011, Juniper demonstrated the industry’s first OpenFlow implementation on a carrier-grade router. Juniper’s Bandwidth Calendaring demonstration featured the MX-series router interoperating with a Big Switch controller. In October 2011, Juniper made available the source code for its OpenFlow agent to Junos SDK partners. Also in 2011, Juniper demonstrated OpenFlow applications for Content Request Routing and Cloud Bursting.

Juniper Will Share Our Vision and Demonstrate SDN at Tokyo Interop
Juniper will share our SDN strategy in a keynote by CTO Michael Beasley at Interop Tokyo on June 14 titled “Will SDN Help Bridge The Application Network Divide?”, and we will have four new SDN demos on the show floor. These will include:

• Bandwidth Calendaring Application (BCA) in Nishoo booth which will demonstrate how an application can dynamically reserve bandwidth for high definition video sessions to serve multiple users distributed across different cities.
• Data Center Interconnect Demo in ONF OpenFlow Showcase which will demonstrate and OpenFlow demo with hybrid and virtualization environment interconnecting two data centers.
• Selective Traffic Steering using the NOX OF Controller, in the Juniper booth, which will demonstrate the ability to selectively and dynamically steer traffic using an application trigger.
• OpenFlow Interoperability in the Show Net which will demonstrate interoperability of the EX platform as an Openflow switch with Openflow Controllers in the Show Net, interoperating with the MX platform. Openflow controllers will include Trema provided by NICT and NEC’s PFC.

I'll be writing more about SDN soon, in the mean time for more information see, link to presentation.

This blog first appeared on the Juniper Network's blog, see link.