colt's sdn/nfv vision

© 2013 Colt Technology Services Group Limited. All rights reserved.

Colt’s SDN/NFV Vision

Javier Benitez, 5 November 2013

Network & Platform Strategy and Architecture

2

Agenda

About Colt

Vision: IT & Network Integration

Strategy: Programmable Networks

Plan: SDN/NF Research & Developments

Summary

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2

3

4

5

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Colt – The Information Delivery Platform

• 44,000km EU high capacity long

distance network, 27,000 transatlantic

• Connecting 22 countries, 39 metro

networks and >150 cities

• 20 data centres and 19,000 connected

buildings

• 500+ NNIs, customers in 77 countries

• MEF / ONF / NFV Member

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Vision: IT & Network Integration

The integration of the network and IT platforms from

the service, technology, system and process point of

view to deliver an end to end integrated customer

experience (the Information Delivery Platform).

Network automation, virtualisation, elasticity and

rapid innovation

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• Networks have evolved into complex, inflexible, closed, proprietary and

costly systems (very little change in the last 15 years)

– Main reasons: lack of networking principles and abstractions (control plane), lack of

open Network APIs

• In contrast, computing is open, heavily built on abstractions, supporting cloud

paradigm (automation, virtualisation, elasticity, on-demand)

• SDN/Programmable Networks: IT & Network integration (computing

paradigm for networking / application & network worlds to communicate)

– ONF - Software-Defined Networking: data & control plane separation,

standardisation of fundamental networking abstractions (Per-hop & Overlay)

– IETF - Software-Driven Networking: focus on network APIs to allow applications

and network to exchange information

– NfV – Network Functions virtualisation: standard IT virtualisation technology to

consolidate many network equipment types

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• Networks have evolved into complex, inflexible, closed, proprietary and

costly systems (very little change in the last 15 years)

– Main reasons: lack of networking principles and abstractions (control plane), lack of

open Network APIs

• In contrast, computing is open, heavily built on abstractions, supporting cloud

paradigm (automation, virtualisation, elasticity, on-demand)

• SDN/Programmable Networks: IT & Network integration (computing

paradigm for networking / application & network worlds to communicate)

– ONF - Software-Defined Networking: data & control plane separation,

standardisation of fundamental networking abstractions (Per-hop & Overlay)

– IETF - Software-Driven Networking: focus on network APIs to allow applications

and network to exchange information

– NfV – Network Functions virtualisation: standard IT virtualisation technology to

consolidate many network equipment types

Architecture

Ops Model

Way we do

business

And many

more…

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Plan: Colt’s SDN/NFV Infrastructure Development

Network

Functions

Virtualisation

(NFV)

L3 CPE router virtualisation (PE based): NLI Project

• virtualisation of the L3 CPE functionality (Internet access / IPVPN)

NFV**:

• vL3CPE / vDC Appliances (FW/LB) / vControl Plane (BGP RR)

DC Fabric &

Network

virtualisation

(CCN)

DC Fabric

• OpenFlow DC Fabric evaluation (2012, not mature enough)

DC Network virtualisation & Architecture: Pilot Completed

• SDN Overlay: L2-L4 DC Network Virtualisation & DC Architecture

WAN SDN

(**)

WAN SDN Network (Optical/Ethernet/IP):

• End to end WAN network abstraction & full automation in a multi-

vendor, multi-layer environment

• Flexible connectivity, i.e., ability to dynamically / on-demand change the

connectivity attributes of the service (BW, QoS profile, etc).

• Use cases: L1 Optical / L2-L3 Packet / Inter-DC

** Research

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L2/L3 Packet Network

Colt Data Centre

VM VM

DC

Spine

DC

Leaf

L2/L3

PE

Cloud Compute

Storage Physical

Compute

VS

VS

VS

VS

VS

VS

SDN

Controller

Overlay

Gateway

Colt WAN Network

DC SDN Virtual Network

Orchestration

Colt Data Centre

VM VM

DC

Spine

DC

Leaf

Cloud Compute

Storage Physical

Compute

VS

VS

VS

VS

VS

VS

Overlay

Gateway

OF / OVS-

DB / XMPP

Network Virtualisation (L2-L4)

e.g., BGP,

Propietary

e.g., XMPP

L2/L3

PE

DC

(GW)

Leaf

DC

(GW)

Leaf

L1 Optical Network

Use Case I: DC Network Virtualisation / Overlay

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Use Case II : NFV

Customer

Colt Data Centre

Colt Node L2/L3 Packet

DWDM Optical

Colt Node

Customer

Colt Data Centre

DC Fabric

DC Fabric

INTERNET L3

L2

L1

L2 L3

L1

Virtual

CPE

VM

VM

VM

VM

NfV

Virtual

FW Virtual

LB

Customer

BGP

RR

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Use Case III: WAN SDN Overlay

L2/L3

OTS

L2/L3

OTS

L2/L3

OTS

L2/L3

OTS

WDM

OTS

WDM

OTS

WDM

WDM

L2

L2

L2

L2 Implicit

Provisioning

(GMPLS)

NMS

Provisioning

Explicit

Provisioning

L2/L3

Packet

Optical Legacy

Ethernet

SDN Controller

Legacy Ethernet

NMS

Topology Export

(JSON/XMPP):

• Node, link, resource

• MPLS/BGP/GMPLS, etc

Provisioning (OpenFlow)

- Set up circuit from X to Y

with BW X

Business

Orchestrator

NMS integration (API)

Set up circuit from A to B

With 1Gbps Bw

A B

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Bandwidth Quality of Service

Eth/IPVPN Portal

API

Service Console and

Dashboard (SCAD)

Optical/EPN/IP/DC fabric

SDN controller

WAN as a Service

New connections/

Bandwidth/QoS change/

In-life hybrid networking

Example of external use cases (1)

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Virtualised Appliances and

App Store

Elastic bandwidth for

infrequent applications

API

(orchestrator)

EPN/IP/SDN

Example of external use cases (2)

EPN/IP/SDN

Virtual appliance App Store

VM

VM

VM

VM

Cloud services

SDN controller

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Summary

• SDN is (still) in its early days. Most of the work by ONF/IETF/NFV still to be

done (long journey). Most SDN products not GA - dust will settle eventually

• Carrier class OpenFlow switches not generally available in the market (2012).

However, DC SDN overlay solutions are a reality (Pilot completed, vendor

selected, deployment on-going in Colt)

• SDN/Network Programmability fits extremely well with Colt’s strategy to

deliver integrated IT & Network services to our customers

– SDN is a key contributor to automation and orchestration/policy (faster

delivery/change, more agility, better utilisation, standard services)

• NFV and service chaining will change the way we deliver L3-L7 services even

more – not just vCPE

• Next initiatives:

– NFV: L3 CPE/DC Appliances/BGP RR

– WAN SDN: L1 Optical / L2-L3 Packet / Inter-DC

– External use cases being discussed with key vendors