Big Switch Networks updates Floodlight

Emerging software-defined networking player and OpenFlow specialist Big Switch Networks has updated its controller software, Floodlight, with a new plug-in that will allow OpenStack users to create and manage virtual networks using Floodlight-controlled OpenFlow switches, CRN reports.

It is a significant move for how it opens Floodlight to the OpenStack developer community, which includes more than 180 companies and some 3 000 individual developers.

"Floodlight offers a central management point for OpenFlow networks - it can manage devices like open vswitch transparently for OpenStack," Internet News quotes Mike Cohen, product manager at Big Switch, as saying.

"In fact, Floodlight also supports a broad range of physical OpenFlow switches on the market today as well, so it greatly simplifies network management.

According to The Register, Big Switch Networks is working on other plug-ins to link Floodlight to other cloud controllers.

"The goal is to attach to every cloud platform out there, particularly those that are open source," Cohen says. "CloudStack is close on our radar, and it will very likely be the next thing we work on."

Public clouds can also get plugged into the OpenFlow controller, provided the cloud vendors have OpenFlow-enabled switches and routers inside their clouds; these are now coming to market, and will give customers access to the OpenFlow APIs inside their own data centres.

Big Switch Networks is not saying when it will offer commercial SDN software, but it will probably be when it has more connectors to cloud fabrics.