HP has unveiled what it says is the IT industry's first open-standards-based, software-defined network (SDN) technologies to span infrastructure, control software and application layers with a single control plane.
This enables enterprises and cloud providers to simplify and maximise agility across data centre, campus and branch networks.
"To solve the challenges created by legacy networks, organisations need the ability to automate the network from end to end by leveraging SDN to abstract the control plane from the physical infrastructure," said Joe Skorupa, VP of Gartner.
"For maximum performance, utilisation and simplicity, customers must ensure that there is a suite of SDN technologies across the entire network - from the hardware infrastructure to the control plane to the applications, and also from the data centre to the desktop - in order to move beyond today's complexities and improve business agility across the enterprise," Skorupa said.
As companies move to cloud and other computing environments, manual configuration of networks through command-line interface (CLI) coding has proven to be error-prone, as well as time- and resource-intensive.
SDN overlay-point products offer a centralised control plane, but fall short by not enabling automated configuration of network infrastructure or providing SDN applications to roll out new services for campus and branch networks.
This incomplete approach creates complexity and unnecessary manual coding requirements. The new technologies announced by HP include an SDN controller, and SDN applications, services and solutions.
The full potential of SDN technologies may be achieved through the abstraction, programming and automation of the network to improve scalability and agility, while simplifying the deployment of applications and services.
"In the cloud era, clients need a single point of control for the entire network, which enables them to deploy any application or service directly to the user within minutes," said Michael Wilson, partner account manager, networking, HP.
SDN solution for three critical layers
The SDN technologies cover all three critical layers - infrastructure, control software and application - to simplify networks and improve agility across the enterprise. These layers create a complete, open SDN hardware and software solution that provides a single point of control for the entire network.
The infrastructure layer delivers open programmable access through OpenFlow, a networking protocol that automates hardware configurations, while the control software layer creates a centralised view of the network.
Within the control layer, the new HP Virtual Application Networks SDN Controller abstracts the physical hardware from the logical deployment, providing a centralised view and automating network configuration of all devices in the infrastructure.
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