Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR-OS, Configuration Manual

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Hybrid OpenFlow Switching
Page 578 7750 SR OS Router Configuration Guide
Hybrid OpenFlow Switching
The hybrid OpenFlow model allows operators to deploy Software Defined Network (SDN) traffic
steering using OpenFlow atop of the existing routing/switching infrastructure. Some of the main
benefits of the hybrid model include:
• Increased flexibility and speed for new service deployment—H-OFS implements flexible,
policy-driven, standard-based Hybrid OpenFlow Switch traffic steering that allows
deployment of new services and on-demand services through policy updates rather than
service and infrastructure programming.
• Evolutionary capex/opex-optimized SDN deployment—The H-OFS functionality can be
deployed on the existing hardware through software upgrade, realizing benefits of
FlexPath programmability. The OpenFlow traffic placement is focused access only (i.e.
flexible, fast, on-demand service deployment) while network infrastructure provides
robustness, resiliency, scale and security.
In a basic mode of operation, a single OpenFlow Switch instance is configured on the router and
controlled by a single OpenFlow controller.
The OF controller(s) and router exchange OpenFlow messages using the OpenFlow protocol
(version 1.3.1) over the TCP/IPv4 control channel. An OpenFlow message is processed by the
OpenFlow switch instance on the router that installs all supported H-OFS traffic steering rules in a
flow table for the H-OFS instance. A single table per H-OFS instance is supported initially. The
OpenFlow switch maps the flow table rules to IPv4 and IPv6 filter policies to achieve traffic
steering.
The H-OFS allows operators to:
• Steer IPv4/v6 unicast traffic arriving on a Layer 3 interface in a GRT context (base router
or IES interfaces) onto a specified RSVP-TE P2P LSP.
• Steer IPv4/IPv6 unicast traffic arriving on a Layer 3 interface in a GRT context (base
router or IES service) onto a specified MPLS-TP LSP.
• Drop traffic.
• Forward traffic using regular processing.
The router allows operators to control traffic using OF, as follows:
• Operator can select a subset of interfaces on the router to have OF rules enabled, by
embedding given instance of H-OFS in filter policies used only by those interfaces.
• For the interfaces with a given H-OFS instance enabled, operator can: