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    An Introduction to SDN Intent Based Networking
    An Introduction to SDN Intent Based Networking
    An Introduction to SDN Intent Based Networking
    Ebook202 pages3 hours

    An Introduction to SDN Intent Based Networking

    By alasdair gilchrist

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    About this ebook

    This book is an introduction to Intent Based Networking and how your business can leverage many of the benefits that it realises through network modernisation, optimisation and business alignment.
    Organisations around the world of all sizes are having to adjust to doing business globally. But one of the biggest challenges for Network managers is that traditional networks are no longer fit for purpose.  The exponential growth of IT costs within network operations has come about by the explosion of virtualization, mobile apps, data and devices, which is starting to outpace  IT capabilities. Currently, in today's data centres, up to 95% of network changes are performed manually, this means that the operational costs are between 2 or 3 times higher than the net cost of the network capital expenditure.
    Therefore we can see that IT automation is essential if we are to cut costs and allow businesses to keep pace in the digital world. Most organisations lack an automated approach to network management and troubleshooting, resulting in IT running repetitive and error-prone tasks.
    However, the proposed solution is that  Intent-Based Networks will help simplify network configuration, complexity, as well as optimize IT, and reduce operational costs by leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms and automation.
    The benefit will be realised through the confluence of machine automation and human expertise to deliver optimal performing networks that are aligned with organisational intent.

    The promise of an intent-based infrastructure is very desirable. Among the most obvious benefits available to us are immediate gains in network responsiveness and agility. Indeed, current research is showing a 50-90% reduction of network deployment times. This is simply down to the fact that network teams no longer need to program the network through labour-intensive CLI driven methods and can now use techniques that aligns with the needs of the business. Removing the tedious manual steps related to configuring and managing a network will save effort, time and money. Research indicates the possible reduction in operational costs (OpEx) by 61%.
    The result is many small medium enterprises are evolving their data centres and IT strategy to accommodate the programmable network as it guarantees their policy intent.
     

    LanguageEnglish
    Publisheralasdair gilchrist
    Release dateAug 14, 2018
    ISBN9781386935841
    An Introduction to SDN Intent Based Networking

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      Book preview

      An Introduction to SDN Intent Based Networking - alasdair gilchrist

      An Introduction to

      SDN

      Intent Based Networking

      Copyright © Alasdair Gilchrist 2018

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1 – The need for a modern network

      Chapter 2 - The Problem with Traditional Networks

      Chapter 3 – The need for programmable networks

      Chapter 4 - Why Focus on Intent?

      Chapter 5 – Motivators for Modernising the Network

      Chapter 6 - Intent-Based Networking Principles

      Chapter 7 - IBN’s Importance Today

      Chapter 8 - A Technical Introduction to IBN

      Chapter 9 - Leveraging SDN for IBN

      Chapter 10 - Making SDN and Intent-Based Networking work together

      Chapter 11 - Machine Learning and Network Orchestration in Intent-based Networking

      Chapter 12 – Realising and delivering Intent

      Chapter 13 - Building an Intent Based Network Data Centre

      Chapter 14 – The Language of Intent

      Chapter 15 - Enabling Technologies

      Chapter 16 - Vendor Solutions and Roadmap

      Chapter 1 – The need for a modern network

      TODAY IN THE ERA OF digitisation, businesses are striving to leverage new technology and expand their data networks, which they see as being fundamental to the evolution of the digital economy. Ubiquitous WiFi and mobile digital interconnectivity, server and application virtualisation, software as a service, data democratisation, and pervasive IP mobility are the driving forces compelling business, partners, employees, and consumers to connect, interact and conduct business on the internet.

      Thus, over the last decade innovative business models have evolved to adapt to and embrace the emerging 24/7 global markets where products and services are customisable and deliverable online using web-based applications. Consequently, the geographic boundaries between business markets, supply chain and consumer sales are diminishing making the network the intelligence hub of real-time communication.

      However, the scale, agility, flexibility and security requirements that an organisation requires to do business at this global level are also associated with, driven by and stressed through the need for digital transformation.

      This seismic-shift from the legacy infrastructure towards digitalisation requires that element-by-element network configuration be replaced by automated system wide programming of all infrastructure devices in order that the network is fit for purpose.

      Figure 1.1 – Legacy Policy Intent Flow

      In the traditional network model shown in Figure 1.1 there is a gap between the architect’s policy intent and the actual achieved runtime-behaviour. In addition it is labour intensive and slow to configure and manage, with no inbuilt method to validate the original intent has been carried out.

      Furthermore, there are no mechanisms for continuous verification and assurance to help ensure that the network continues to maintain and deliver the desired intent and protection over time.

      This type of continuous verification and assurance is alien to traditional networks as it requires the gathering of telemetry from a multitude of diverse sources for ongoing data analysis.

      This is not to say that traditional networks do not collect and store data, they do.

      They store copious quantities of data in the logs of every network node, which is collected and analysed in central network management consoles. It is rather that previously there was no motivation for administrators to trawl through these logs until an incident required investigation. In contrast, the modern approach to networking leverages evolving technologies for data harvesting and advanced analytics via Machine Learning algorithms. These advanced analytical tools provide a rich context of information to optimize system performance, provide verification and continuous assurance, secure the network and ensure that the network delivers the architect’s intent.

      In Figure 1.2, there is an illustration of what a modern network looks like:

      Figure 1.2 – Intent Policy with Closed Loop

      In the intent based network paradigm there is a focus on software defined networking but with automation of processes to the fore. Automation requires additional intelligence to be added to the typical SDN mix whereby the architect’s intent is automatically carried out by software. The policy intent is translated into policy specifications and ultimately device configurations. However in this autonomous system the intent is formally validated and the runtime behaviour monitored to ensure the ongoing delivery of the intent over time. This closed-cycle shown in figure 1.2 provides the required continuous validation and assurance that the network and the business require.

      The benefits of SDN and early deployments of IBN are perhaps best demonstrated in the Service Provider industry where services such as broadband, video, and B2B are the operators' main business.

      Trends in video, cloud, Internet+, and BYOD technologies are seeing network traffic accelerate beyond previous expectations and infrastructure capacity. Thus service operators are facing major issues with deploying enough metro area standard, 10, 40 and 100 Gigabit fixed Ethernet to cope with wireless data backhaul demand.

      In addition to implementing high speed broadband infrastructure they also have to cope with the continual acceleration of capacity demand for wireless and OTT applications. Precious ‘carrier’ bandwidth is nowhere near enough to meet consumer demand. Furthermore there are long construction periods, high capital investment, and low ROI. To compound matters there are long-term coexistence of diverse wireless standards, many different types of services, and differentiated business models, which are all increasing the demands on mobile broadband networks. Moreover, Over-The-Top (OTT) services, such as Skype, YouTube and Netflix, have become a basic service for consumers. Consequently, Service Providers must meet this capacity demand but they are not financially benefiting, indeed it is a serious business constraint for service providers. Furthermore, B2B is becoming an important revenue source for service operators but their business partner’s also demand diversity of service. The enterprise and industry markets require that private line services should have many on-demand service capabilities. These include, on-demand customization and immediate service provisioning, which greatly challenges existing networks.

      Consequently, the forward-thinking operators are actively exploring emerging business models in order to generate future revenue streams.

      Emerging technologies, such as cloud computing, Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), Artificial Intelligence (AI), SD-WAN and the pervasive emergence of IoT, enable them to enter the trillion-dollar markets. These technologies create new business opportunities that are digitally transforming previously analogue vertical industries. Nonetheless, to accomplish these business goals Service Providers’ will need flexible, scalable and open networks that can accommodate diverse technical services.

      Indeed, over the past two decades around 400 global service providers created circa US$10 trillion in network assets. Despite this vast capital investment, the Service Providers biggest issue is how to maximize the network value. A major dilemma remains how to transition from the legacy network with all its Operational and Management constraints (O&M) towards a new smart world that enables architects to create a trillion-dollar commercial roadmap.

      For network architects’ to achieve their commercial objectives their designs will have to become more agile in service integration and provisioning; more intelligent in automated business planning, more adaptable in O&M and in zero-touch service provisioning; more efficient in the way that they pool shared resources ending the traditional silo model; and more open in creating cross-industry integration that is a platform for a collaborative society where networks are shared so encouraging partners to innovate and work together.

      The promise of Intent-Base Networking is that it can leverage SDN architecture to deliver on these objectives

      and at the same time release Service Providers from the shackles of the traditional network.

      Although some functional modules of the intent-based networking (IBN) puzzle are already being delivered today by start-up companies including Apstra, Intentionet, Veriflow, and Forward Networks, it is still a nascent technology. Traditional Fortune 500 companies are unlikely to deploy intent-based networking until the technology matures. However, the web-scaled companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook have already embraced network automation using self-produced software and hardware for many years. They focused on their business needs rather than on the constraints of legacy networking.

      The driver for these internet giants was the need for vast scalability, flexibility and unprecedented multi-tenancy requirements.

      There was no vendor roadmap that could deliver the web giants’ requirements so they designed their own SDN solutions. However, it isn’t just the giant service providers that have adopted SDN infrastructure design principles. Other businesses keenly observed how these pioneers derived vast scalability, flexibility, cost savings as well as performance and management advantages and have strived to emulate their software driven approach to networking.

      One company, Netflix, demonstrates what a company can accomplish when IT focuses on the business rather than on infrastructure. For example, Netflix's entire control plane runs on Amazon Web Services. By shifting the control to the cloud allows their IT to concentrate their efforts on developing the thousands of micro-services such as the ones that decide which movies to recommend to Netflix's 100 million customer base.

      As a result, Netflix has no need for employees configuring routers, because the routers reside within the AWS domain. This strategy removes the burden of scaling, securing and configuring infrastructure. Hence, when demand for movies spikes, for example over a holiday period, the Netflix network automatically scales up autonomously and securely with no human intervention required.

      Another example of an organisation that is forward thinking in its infrastructure is Bloomberg the financial services technology company. They have a complex, mission-critical legacy network—including its own global Internet Protocol (IP)/Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network that carries stock market data, video, voice, and screencasts to its 15,000 customer-premises equipment (CPE) routers.

      Bloomberg’s goals are to reduce complexity and to reuse and recycle where it makes sense to do so, instead of trying to manage everything in-house.

      The guiding principles are to automate everything in the data center, use open source software in situations where it is financially beneficial and the company can make cost effective changes, use virtualization and containers for all applications to reduce Capex and Opex, and then use the cloud to scale the business.

      Netflix and Bloomberg realised that for many decades all the innovation in networking has been driven by hardware vendors. It was all based around increasing throughput, bandwidth, routing and switching speed as well as backplane capacity. As a result, everything was big, expensive, with slow development cycles and lengthy roadmaps, and worse still, very complicated.

      The advent of cloud computing changed everything.

      Today, in the era of Cloud Networks, it’s all about hosting scalable applications that can run anywhere, from on-premises data centres to multiple public or private clouds.

      The advent of Cloud computing turned the reliance away from hardware vendors to application developers to help build the next generation of networks. These transformative networks feature software to automate processes, move networking functionality into the cloud, and aide the transition from a centralized data centre to a distributed cloud infrastructure.

      To meet these new enterprise level requirements, open source tools emerged, such as Open vSwitch.

      This type of virtualised turn hardware into easily deployed VMs that simulate network switches. Today, instead of dedicated engineers deploying hardware and reconfiguring the network, small multi-skilled teams use agile methodologies with short life cycles to develop innovative applications that can rush ideas to production.

      Deploying an application at scale used to be extremely difficult and very time-consuming. Now, open source containerization technologies such as Docker and open source orchestration technologies like Kubernetes enable developers to wrap code in a container and scale it as needed.

      Despite the vast potential, the software defined network evolution has lagged behind other data center technologies. Adoption has been painfully slow particularly in the enterprise. The issue is that without the assurance of a vendor’s roadmap many enterprise decision makers will be unlikely to accept the risk of moving to a software-defined network either in-house or in the cloud.

      It is one thing for Amazon and Google to develop their own SDN for they had no choice. Their globalisation and vast scalability demands necessitated a radical change in network architecture. But most enterprises are not driven by that essential need to change as most data centres can still run effectively on the traditional three-tier data center infrastructure.

      However, even small to medium enterprises are witnessing that the virtualisation of servers and applications has driven significant change. For example, the traditional traffic flows via the traditional three-tier hierarchal model of Core, Aggregation and Access layers drove traffic in a North-South pattern. Whereas an SDN model supporting VMs and containers displays the characteristics of East – West traffic flows across the lower switching plane. Therefore, network design is now focused on fast East-West switching across a layer-2 switch fabric that delivers optimal application performance.

      Figure 1.3 A DC Network Designed for VMs

      Off course radical changes to a data center infrastructure without vendor support and assurance comes with huge risk.

      Hence, the reluctance of data centres to adopt SDN infrastructure in the enterprise market. Nonetheless, forward thinking businesses are beginning along the path to digitisation by transforming their network architecture not physically but logically by deploying orchestration software and then moving to address the network management functions. The benefits they are reaping include increased business agility, faster time to deployment, and better security.

      Sceptics could also take heart and satisfaction from the success of early adapters of SDN technology, such as

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