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Google (GOOG), which relies on home-grown switches for its massive infrastructure, is throwing...
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Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 12:54 PM ETGoogle (GOOG), which relies on home-grown switches for its massive infrastructure, is throwing its weight behind OpenFlow, a networking protocol supported by upstart switch vendors looking to challenge the proprietary solutions of CSCO, JNPR, and others. While remaining committed to their proprietary hardware, the giants are officially supporting OpenFlow, which relies on a technology called software-defined networking.
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Google is not going into the networking HW business. Also, the networking industry is not openly embracing OpenFlow either, otherwise they'd lose all of their value. OpenFlow controller vendor, Big Switch, recently expressed frustration that the "big vendors" are blocking their success by limiting support for their solution with "big vendor" products. (Duh!) Lastly, taking the control plane off the network (and onto a server) looks alot like SONET, which was a bear to architect, deploy and manage. It was displaced by Ethernet back in the mid-90s. Jury is out on the viability of OpenFlow for general use.
Google/Amazon/Facebook use OpenFlow to cut Cap-Ex on network infrastructure by purchasing OS-less white-box switches. OpenFlow allows them to do this. Their specific use-case (datacenters) seems applicable, but the jury is still out. Nicera and BigSwitch haven't found the success they were hoping for with the cloud providers.