Book Image

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) with OpenStack

By : Sreenivas Voruganti, Sriram Subramanian
Book Image

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) with OpenStack

By: Sreenivas Voruganti, Sriram Subramanian

Overview of this book

Networking is one the pillars of OpenStack and OpenStack Networking are designed to support programmability and Software-Defined Networks. OpenStack Networking has been evolving from simple APIs and functionality in Quantum to more complex capabilities in Neutron. Armed with the basic knowledge, this book will help the readers to explore popular SDN technologies, namely, OpenDaylight (ODL), OpenContrail, Open Network Operating System (ONOS) and Open Virtual Network (OVN). The first couple of chapters will provide an overview of OpenStack Networking and SDN in general. Thereafter a set of chapters are devoted to OpenDaylight (ODL), OpenContrail and their integration with OpenStack Networking. The book then introduces you to Open Network Operating System (ONOS) which is fast becoming a carrier grade SDN platform. We will conclude the book with overview of upcoming SDN projects within OpenStack namely OVN and Dragonflow. By the end of the book, the readers will be familiar with SDN technologies and know how they can be leveraged in an OpenStack based cloud.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) with OpenStack
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

OpenContrail architecture


The architecture of OpenContrail can be broken up into two main components:

  • vRouter

  • Controller

Let us examine each of these components in detail.

vRouter

The vRouter is the main component in the forwarding plane of OpenContrail. The vRouter runs on the Compute Nodes and acts as a virtual switch as well as a virtual router. It forwards the traffic to and from the virtual machines running on the Compute Node. Since OpenContrail is based on an overlay network architecture, the vRouter acts as the endpoint for overlay networks.

The vRouter is analogous to the Open vSwitch (OVS) when compared with an OpenDaylight-based SDN architecture. While OVS supports protocols like OpenFlow to program the forwarding plane, the vRouter uses XMPP as the control plane protocol. XMPP stands for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol. XMPP is an interesting choice for the control plane protocol. XMPP was designed as a protocol for detecting the presence and exchanging messages for real...