HP Networking

[#1]

By Steve Brar, Global Product Marketing Manager, HP Networking

There is a lot of buzz around OpenFlow and software-defined networking in the industry right now. It has been a little over a week now since HP announced commercial support for OpenFlow on a wide-range of products in its switching portfolio. I wanted to share some highlights from the announcement as well as real-life deployment scenarios that were presented by HP and our customers.

You are there:  OpenFlow announcement event

During our OpenFlow software announcement event, we had an opportunity to see real customers usingthe technology to solve real challenges in their networks today. In fact, HP has helped over 60 customers deploy OpenFlow in their networks over the several years.

One of HP’s customers in attendance was the Chief Network Architect from Indiana University, Matthew Davy. Matthew impressed me with his description of the sheer scale, diversity, and day-to-day challenges Indiana University’s network faces as a large research institution. According to Matthew, IU’s network has “over 100,000 switch ports and 5,000 wireless access points… all of those are powered by HP Networking equipment.”

Matthew described several use cases where they have utilized OpenFlow-enabled HP switches to virtualize network resources in dormitories and for researchers.

“Like some of those large data center operators we see software-defined networking and OpenFlow is a key technology on how we are going to meet the growing requirements we have for our network” -- Matthew Davy, Chief Network Architect, Indiana University

                   

Matthew Davy, Chief Network Architect, Indiana University presenting on IU’s OpenFlow deployments

OpenFlow is enterprise-ready

IU’s  OpenFlow deployments demonstrate that  OpenFlow technology is enterprise-ready and can be used to implement software-defined networks to solve real network challenges today.

Also in attendance were Dan Pitt, Executive Director of the Open Networking Foundation and Chip Elliott, GENI Project Director. There was also a great demonstration of OpenFlow by Dan Montesanto, Global Product Manager for HP networking and how it can be used within enterprise campus networks.

More to come in software-defined networking innovation

HP has a unique opportunity to lead software-defined networking innovation with its comprehensive enterprise portfolio and converged infrastructure strategy. As a market leader in servers, storage, and networking, HP will be bringing to market the most innovative and exciting software-defined networking solutions utilizing OpenFlow technology. So what’s next? HP is planning on making some more announcements in the months ahead as we extend OpenFlow support across our FlexNetwork architecture.

On another note, I am looking forward to attending the Open Networking Summit in Santa Clara, CA April 16th-18th, 2012. Several members of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) Market Education team, including myself, will be presenting an OpenFlow tutorial for product and marketing managers. I encourage everyone who has interest in OpenFlow to attend the summit and if you find it of interest please attend the tutorial session.

>> Read my blog post: Enterprise-ready OpenFlow is here—from a leading Tier-one networking vendor

>> Ethan Banks, “Fast Packet” (SearchNetworking) blog: HP OpenFlow: A move away from the 'tyrrany of CLI'

>> Check out more OpenFlow Media event videos.

>> Read more: OpenFlow enables virtual networking

>> Learn more about HP Networking products and solutions.

>> Follow HP Networking on Twitter and Google+ | Join HPN LinkedIn Community | Like us HPN Facebook

[#2]

Very cool.  Love the Proof-of-Concept video, and how someone is actively using it.

[#3]

Hi Aaron, thank you for your comment. I agree with you! The use cases are very cool-- OpenFlow and SDN have the potential to spur some pretty interesting netwokring innovations.