SDN, NFV and Network Automation

Upgrading First Corp International LAN December 2, 2017 | Javier Guillermo We signed a contract with First Corp International (FCI), headquartered in Fort Worth TX, to upgrade their office LAN as they were having performance issues as well as signal reach. FCI is an international wholesale drill bit supply company. They serve the water well, geothermal, mining, oil and gas industries. Their customers are independent drillers, national and international drilling companies as well as national oil companies.   Above First Corp International CEO SOnny Beachamp As FCI didn't have a dedicated Tech Employee, our first task was discovering their network and checking for performance and signal issues. The second tasks, when the issues were identified was doing several network upgrades, got a new switch as well as wireless routers and extenders.  In regards to the task of extending the coverage to the assembl

In my previous blog, I explained the basics of Software Defined Networking (SDN), how SDN has evolved to this point, the separation between the control plane and data plane, plus we named the three main flavors of SDN: Open SDN, SDN by APIs and SDN via overlays. We also covered the principles of the first approach, Open SDN. In this blog, I will cover the implementation of this technology via APIs, a preferred method used by traditional networking hardware companies. SDN implementation via APIs refers to southbound APIs that configure and program the control plane active on the device. There are a number of legacy network device APIs in use that offer different degrees of control (SNMP, CLO, TL1, RADIUS, TR-069, etc.) and a number of newer ones (NETCONF/YANG, REST, XMPP, BGP-LS, etc.) that offer different degrees of control over the network devices, data plane, topology, etc., each having different advantages and disadvantages. I won’t cover them in depth in

Demystifying SDN: Open SDN Approach By Javier Guillermo  - Principal Consultant - September 16, 2017 The joke goes around that the true meaning of Software Defined Networking (SDN) is “Still Don’t Know”.  In short, SDN is a technology that allows network administrators to no longer be reliant on static architecture of traditional hardware/networks, but freed to centrally and dynamically manage the network via open, programmatic interfaces.  This is accomplished by separating the control plane (the system that decides where the network traffic will go) from the data plane (the systems that forward the traffic onto their destination). Software Defined Networking (SDN): Business Drivers What’s driving the need to change from the transitional method of managing networks and move towards a SDN approach?  There are three key catalysts in the industry driving the need for network change as show in the graphic below. Mobility, cloud, and IoT are three very real way