Brocade pushes open source SDN with new controller and applications

BANGALORE, INDIA: Brocade today announced the Brocade SDN Controller 2.0, an OpenDaylight (ODL) controller based on the Lithium ODL release, and two new software-defined networking (SDN) applications—Brocade Topology Manager and Brocade Flow Manager. These new solutions will facilitate open source SDN with greater innovation, interoperability and choice while eliminating vendor lock-in for customers.

Some of the enhancements to meet new-age data center requirements include:

• Enhancements to the Open vSwitch Database (OVSDB) interface and the OpenStack Modular Layer 2 plug-in (certified in Red Hat’s Juno distribution) enabling cloud providers to completely use an open software stack to manage their data center infrastructure
• OpenDaylight clustering for improved scalability and stability
• A new user interface for applications to provide a consistent and intuitive view of the network under control

The SDN applications complement this latest release of the Brocade SDN Controller.

The Brocade Topology Manager, a free SDN application, displays discovered network topology, allowing administrators to create a list of nodes and conduct simple searches for nodes.

The Brocade Flow Manager extends the capabilities of the Brocade Topology Manager by enabling users to view and interact with the network topology using near-real-time information to perform traffic engineering and network segmentation based on end-to-end flow views.

In addition, the new Brocade SDN Controller supports the recently-announced Brocade Flow Optimizer to intelligently manage traffic flow and proactively mitigate network attacks.

“Delivering open solutions like the Brocade SDN Controller 2.0 and related applications, packaged with a full complement of education and services, will facilitate the smooth journey to SDN for customers worldwide,” said Kelly Herrell, senior vice president and general manager, Software Networking, Brocade.

The Brocade SDN Controller is continuously built from OpenDaylight code, free of proprietary extensions. Brocade provides multi-vendor compatibility testing and complete, single-source support for Brocade SDN Controller environments.