2013.11.28
NTT Comware Starts Sales of SmartSDN Controller, Software for Flexible Network Support and Operation
NTT Comware Corporation (Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President: Shinobu Umino; hereinafter, "NTT Comware") starts sales of SmartSDN Controller on November 29, 2013 (Fri). The software product offers flexibility for network support including settings/changes of devices for network architecting, and communication control and operation of networks, by using SDN*1/OpenFlow*2 as the underlying technologies.
1. Background
With advancement of business ICT, cloud computing and virtual servers became essential, which though increases burdens on networking administrators. Network traffic data is also increasing at a rapid rate and a simple and efficient operation and management of networks is required for business continuity. Under the circumstances, SDN gains increasing attention as a concept to solely use software for architecting networks as well as its operation and management.NTT Comware has been striving for the development of the SDN Controller in full use of its technologies accumulated through the development, architecting and operation of the large scale and highly reliable NTT networks, while conducting the evaluation and validation tests on the technologies of ONF*3, which is necessary in commercial application of SDN, through researches on the trends of its standardization.
2. Features of SmartSDN Controller
(1) Network Path Control with Flexibility- SmartSDN Controller offers a solution for centralized control of switches and routers to manage the entire network, enabling flexible changes of paths subject to errors or data traffic on the network, not through bypass control of a path which is dependent on the existing routing protocol in a data communication.
- Focusing on QoE*4 of users of the service, five (5) levels of the evaluation criteria are provided as the QoE indicator for networking quality (e.g. delay, fluctuation and loss) so as to maintain a certain service quality by bypassing data with better performance (patent pending).
- SmartSDN Controller has redundancy for ICT service continuity even in case of unexpected errors of software, hardware or networks.
- It is able to detect errors on a data path or to confirm a status of traffic or data communication paths by simulating a dataflow between locations and forward the data to a virtual network (patent pending).
3. Operating Environment (as of November 28, 2013)
The system has the controller installed in the server to control the switches compliant with the standard specification (OpenFlow).* Control Server
OS: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4
* Support Switch
OpenFlow 1.2 or later
** More models compatible with the system will be released. Please contact us for further information.
4. Future Scenario
NTT Comware is committed to ICT solutions aiming a simple and efficient operation and management of networks using its technologies applied to datacenters deploying virtual networking and internal LAN for corporate users. It is expected to expand to core networks of telecommunication carriers in the future.5. Price
Please contact us below for further information.
[Notes]
*1 SDN: Software Defined Networking, an approach to computer networking, in which control is decoupled from networking hardware and given to a software application to control the entire network.
*2 OpenFlow: OpenFlow is the primary candidate international standard to implement SDN. OpenFlow allows direct access to switches from software called controllers to manage the entire network, by separating switches, which have been used to control with traditional systems.
*3 ONF: Open Networking Foundation, a nonprofit, mutually beneficial trade organization to proceed for standardization of OpenFlow through promotion of base technologies and commercial deployment of SDN (software-defined networking).
*4 QoE: Quality of Experience. It is a measure of a customer's experiences on a service, such as IP telephony and video streaming.
** Other names of the services or merchandise shown above are trademarks or registered trademarks of each company.
*1 SDN: Software Defined Networking, an approach to computer networking, in which control is decoupled from networking hardware and given to a software application to control the entire network.
*2 OpenFlow: OpenFlow is the primary candidate international standard to implement SDN. OpenFlow allows direct access to switches from software called controllers to manage the entire network, by separating switches, which have been used to control with traditional systems.
*3 ONF: Open Networking Foundation, a nonprofit, mutually beneficial trade organization to proceed for standardization of OpenFlow through promotion of base technologies and commercial deployment of SDN (software-defined networking).
*4 QoE: Quality of Experience. It is a measure of a customer's experiences on a service, such as IP telephony and video streaming.
** Other names of the services or merchandise shown above are trademarks or registered trademarks of each company.
