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Google's Move to Software-Defined Networking

51 points by alanfranzoni 11y ago

Animats 11y ago
"Basically, what I think Google and some other companies find attractive about SDN is the ability to affect policy more directly from a single location with one view of the network as a whole." That's "Software defined networking", which is a lot like virtual circuits. The first time A tries to send to B, a request is sent to some central server which decides if A can talk to B, how A gets to reach B, and whether it's desirable to listen in or MITM the conversation. The central server then sets up the routing, but doesn't handle the traffic. This is amazingly like Tymnet, circa 1969. Amazon has something like this internally, which they use as a big patchboard for their servers. This gives them freedom in allocating IP addresses. It's am example of "There is no problem in computer science which cannot be solved by adding another layer of indirection."
- pwarner 11y ago
  Or more specifically in networking "another layer of encapsulation". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Extensible_LAN https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Extensible_LAN
  - DiabloD3 11y ago
    The logical end case for VXLANs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Overlay_Virtual_Ethernet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Overlay_Virtual_Et...
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Everything old is new again :-) I read through the SDN specs and thought "Hmm, this reads like they are trying to implement ATM, badly." But one of the really fun things is that nearly all of the switching fabric patents from DEC/Tandem/Etc. from the 90's are evaporating and so we can actually build something like ATM now without getting bogged down in that mess. Because of that I'm pretty optimistic that it will make things a bit better than they were.
  - windowsworkstoo 11y ago
    Indeed. While I am not a fan of everyone "doing SDN", I did enjoy this article. It seems that Google are doing interesting stuff, in so far as rejecting legacy protocols where practical (i.e their private WAN) and building something better, which hopefully will eventually seep into common knowledge and usage.
  - limeyx 11y ago
    Except this is actually working pretty well as opposed to ATM :)

51 points by alanfranzoni 11y ago

"Basically, what I think Google and some other companies find attractive about SDN is the ability to affect policy more directly from a single location with one view of the network as a whole." That's "Software defined networking", which is a lot like virtual circuits. The first time A tries to send to B, a request is sent to some central server which decides if A can talk to B, how A gets to reach B, and whether it's desirable to listen in or MITM the conversation. The central server then sets up the routing, but doesn't handle the traffic. This is amazingly like Tymnet, circa 1969. Amazon has something like this internally, which they use as a big patchboard for their servers. This gives them freedom in allocating IP addresses. It's am example of "There is no problem in computer science which cannot be solved by adding another layer of indirection."

pwarner 11y ago
Or more specifically in networking "another layer of encapsulation". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Extensible_LAN https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Extensible_LAN
- DiabloD3 11y ago
  The logical end case for VXLANs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Overlay_Virtual_Ethernet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Overlay_Virtual_Et...
ChuckMcM 11y ago
Everything old is new again :-) I read through the SDN specs and thought "Hmm, this reads like they are trying to implement ATM, badly." But one of the really fun things is that nearly all of the switching fabric patents from DEC/Tandem/Etc. from the 90's are evaporating and so we can actually build something like ATM now without getting bogged down in that mess. Because of that I'm pretty optimistic that it will make things a bit better than they were.
- windowsworkstoo 11y ago
  Indeed. While I am not a fan of everyone "doing SDN", I did enjoy this article. It seems that Google are doing interesting stuff, in so far as rejecting legacy protocols where practical (i.e their private WAN) and building something better, which hopefully will eventually seep into common knowledge and usage.
- limeyx 11y ago
  Except this is actually working pretty well as opposed to ATM :)