Now that we covered how LISP Routing works in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, let dig into some of the things you can do with it. I would suggest you go back and read the first two posts if you are new to LISP since I am not going to cover that material again. So, lets look at three of the most popular use cases: 1) VM mobility, 2) IPv6 migration, and 3) smarter multi-homing. I am going to cover the generic use cases, then wrap with some real-world customer use cases.
VM Mobility
Since it seems to be the hottest topic, let start with the mobility solution. From a networking perspective, there are a couple of things that are important with a live migration (ex. VMotion): we want to try and preserve TCP sessions (note: this does not mean “packets don’t get dropped”) and we want to maintain optimal routing (note to server folks: you too care about these things). We would also like global mobility—basically the server admin should be able to move her VM wherever she want and not be constrained by IP addressing considerations.
Let’s build on the scenario we have been using in the prior posts, where we have a host 192.168.1.12 is chatting with a VM 172.16.4.7. Assume that we have gone through the whole map-request/map-reply process, so we have something that looks like this:
The constant need for more speed, mobility, and insatiable demands for access to information, continues to strain the capacity of service provider networks around the globe. In essence, whatever capacity made available will be consumed.
An open question on the minds of the operators -- how can they leverage SDN to not only keep up with these demands but maintaining a highly profitable network business? Such was the topic of conversation amongst operators and our CTO, David Ward, during a panel discussion at the recent Broadband World Forum (BBWF) in Amsterdam.
What lies in the balance for operators — a plethora of Read More »
Programmability, application aware environments, and software defined networks are popular topics in the industry right now. Network operators see the revenue opportunities to deliver services which can dynamically utilize network infrastructure while meeting application specific requirements. This thought process dominated at this year’s Carrier Ethernet World Congress in Barcelona, and Cisco was helping lead the way.
It was a pleasure to watch some of our thought leaders share their unique and innovative ideas and direction with the larger service provider, vendor and analyst community – starting with Software Defined Networking (SDN). SDN wasn’t the only topic, we shared ideas around mobile trends such as 4G/LTE and small cells and the resulting network impact, the increasing need to marry the IP layer with the underlying transport layers, and strategies around moving legacy TDM services onto a packet infrastructure. I love watching the cross-industry creativity flow as we collectively solve today’s challenges posed by the growth of new user trends.
At Cisco live last month I spent several days talking to a lot of customers about all the new enhancements to our Nexus 1000V portfolio, especially the programmable virtual network overlays that are part of the Cisco ONE framework for SDN/network programmability. While the Nexus 1000V-based virtual networks are really gaining traction (6,000+ Nexus 1000V virtual switch customers to date), I still found a lot of folks weren’t all that familiar with the concept of VXLAN, and why they are so important to building scalable cloud networks and multi-tenant data centers.
Well, not to fear, VXLAN MAN is here! Well, not really, but we have just released a great new fundamentals video on VXLAN from the creative geniuses at Techwise TV (Thanks to @JimmyRay_Purser and @robbboyd!). We’ve gotten great reviews on this so far, and I know the guys really had a fun time in creating this one.
The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) has released this week a whitepaper and companion video looking at virtual network overlays and their use in multi-tenant environments. This comes on the heels of the ESG research brief on Cisco’s recently announced Cisco ONE set of network programming interfaces which includes Nexus 1000V-based virtual overlays.
ESG points out that virtual network overlays are important to building out multi-tenant environments like private and hybrid clouds, as well as overcoming scalability issues in those environments that have traditionally been based on VLANs. As ESG notes, and as Cisco mentioned in it’s ONE announcement, programmability of the virtual networks is what really separates them from classic overlays based on MPLS or GRE tunnels. The Nexus 1000V will achieve this programmability capability by SDN API’s such as OpenStack on top of the Nexus 1000V virtual supervisor module.
Programmability, application aware environments, and software defined networks are popular topics in the industry right now. Network operators see the revenue opportunities to deliver services which can dynamically utilize network infrastructure while meeting application specific requirements. This thought process dominated at this year’s Carrier Ethernet World Congress in Barcelona, and Cisco was helping lead the way.
