Book Image

Mastering Python Networking

Book Image

Mastering Python Networking

Overview of this book

This book begins with a review of the TCP/ IP protocol suite and a refresher of the core elements of the Python language. Next, you will start using Python and supported libraries to automate network tasks from the current major network vendors. We will look at automating traditional network devices based on the command-line interface, as well as newer devices with API support, with hands-on labs. We will then learn the concepts and practical use cases of the Ansible framework in order to achieve your network goals. We will then move on to using Python for DevOps, starting with using open source tools to test, secure, and analyze your network. Then, we will focus on network monitoring and visualization. We will learn how to retrieve network information using a polling mechanism, ?ow-based monitoring, and visualizing the data programmatically. Next, we will learn how to use the Python framework to build your own customized network web services. In the last module, you will use Python for SDN, where you will use a Python-based controller with OpenFlow in a hands-on lab to learn its concepts and applications. We will compare and contrast OpenFlow, OpenStack, OpenDaylight, and NFV. Finally, you will use everything you’ve learned in the book to construct a migration plan to go from a legacy to a scalable SDN-based network.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Title
Humble Bundle
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
12
OpenStack, OpenDaylight, and NFV

Introducing OpenFlow


Let's start with an honest statement: OpenFlow is not SDN, and SDN is not OpenFlow. People often interchanged the two terms in the early days, but they are certainly not the same. OpenFlow is a very important building block of SDN, and many credit it to be the origin of the SDN movement. OpenFlow originally started at Stanford University as a research project, which eventually jump-started the startups of Nicira and Big Switch Networks. Nicira was acquired by VMWare and is now part of the company's network-virtualization product line. Big Switch Networks leads a number of OpenFlow open source projects such as Floodlight Controller, Switch Light OS for bar-metal Ethernet switches, and Switch Light vSwitch for virtual switches.

The original version of OpenFlow 1.1 was released in February 2011, and soon after the release, the OpenFlow effort was overseen by the Open Network Foundation, which retains control for the 1.2 release and beyond. In 2012, Google made a big wave...