Briefing note by Lori Macvittie on Midokura

1. Midokura
A
Briefing
Note
by
Lori
MacVittie
Midokura
A
Briefing
Note
by
Lori
MacVittie
Company:
Midokura
(www.midokura.com)
Market:
SDN
Products:
MidoNet
Summary:
MidoNet
is
a
Software-­‐Defined
Networking
solution
attempting
to
address
the
limitations
of
competing
controller-­‐based
models
through
a
shared
state,
fully
meshed
virtual
overlay
network
architecture.
MidoNet
is
designed
to
overlay
existing
L2/L3
networks
and
provides
a
highly
dynamic
and
flexible
virtual
network
defined
solely
through
roles
and
policies.
The
resulting
architecture
expands
seamlessly
to
inter-­‐domain
network
architectures,
enabling
federated
hybrid
cloud
implementations.

2. Midokura
A
Briefing
Note
by
Lori
MacVittie
Market
Overview
The
market
for
SDN
(Software-­‐Defined
Network)
is
just
beginning
to
emerge
into
an
early
adoption
state
as
organizations
begin
to
refocus
their
virtualization
efforts
on
the
network
and
explore
ways
to
realize
benefits
similar
to
that
achieved
in
server
infrastructure
with
network
infrastructure.
As
with
any
emerging,
highly
disruptive
technology,
SDN
is
already
plagued
by
diasaporic
definitions.
At
least
three
major
views
of
SDN
are
accepted
by
this
nascent
market:
1. Network
Virtualization
Network
virtualization
focuses
on
the
implementation
of
virtual
overlay
networks
to
provide
the
dynamism
and
policy-­‐based
networking
required
to
manage
high
rates
of
change,
particularly
in
cloud
computing
environments.
It
is
particularly
well-­‐suited
to
federated
hybrid
cloud
models
in
which
disparate
networks
must
be
managed
as
a
singular
network.
2. Protocol-­‐based
Virtualization
Protocol-­‐based
virtualization
is
the
expansion
of
existing
L2
and
L3
network
domains
through
the
use
of
virtualization-­‐friendly
protocol
extensions
such
as
VXLAN,
NVGRE,
STT,
and
VPLS.
Protocol-­‐based
virtualization
address
challenges
with
physical
and
topological
location
associated
with
highly
mobile
virtual
applications
and
services
as
well
as
scalability
limitations
on
existing
network
protocols.
3. Centralized
Control-­‐Based
Networks
Centralized
control-­‐based
networks
are
those
implementing
a
centrally
controller
model
for
management
and
routing
decisions
that
subsequently
disseminate
routing
paths
via
an
open,
standards-­‐based
protocol
such
as
OpenFlow.
OpenFlow-­‐based
SDN
models
are
currently
viewed
as
most
favorable
due
to
its
ability
to
reduce
operational
reliance
on
human
capital
and
introduce
a
higher
level
of
resiliency
due
to
the
controller’s
ability
to
automatically
reroute
around
failures.
The
market
is
dominated
by
protocol-­‐based
virtualization
with
a
secondary
focus
on
centralized
control-­‐
based
networks.
The
need
to
overcome
intra-­‐environment
challenges
associated
with
virtual
machine
mobility,
high-­‐rates
of
change,
and
operational
complexity
are
driving
early
adoption
of
both
models
in
the
enterprise.
Standards
are,
at
this
juncture,
clustered
around
protocol-­‐based
virtualization
with
the
exception
of
OpenFlow.
Though
its
supporters
are
non-­‐trivial
(Deutsche
Telekom,
Facebook,
Google,
Microsoft,
Verizon,
and
Yahoo!
are
founders
of
the
Open
Networking
Foundation
(ONF)
where
standardization
efforts
are
currently
ongoing)
and
the
base
of
OpenFlow-­‐enabled
hardware
is
quite
broad,
it
remains
to
be
seen
whether
OpenFlow
will
survive
a
mostly
vendor-­‐driven
standards
process.
Midokura
Overview
Midokura
has
chosen
to
focus
its
SDN
efforts
in
network
virtualization
with
its
MidoNet
product,
a
fully
meshed,
P2P
tunnel-­‐driven,
layer
2-­‐4
virtual
network
overlay
model.
Implementation
takes
advantage
of
commoditized
x86
hardware
running
a
MidoNet
agent
that
connects
to
an
Open
vSwitch
deployed
on
a

3. Midokura
A
Briefing
Note
by
Lori
MacVittie
Linux-­‐based
host.
Each
host
becomes
a
node
in
the
MidoNet
virtual
overlay
network
and
each
host
can
be
assigned
a
variety
of
roles,
each
able
to
apply
relevant
L2-­‐4
service
policies.
Using
a
scalable
shared
network
state
database,
MidoNet
enables
a
completely
distributed
execution
model
that
can
be
deployed
atop
existing
L2/L3
networks.
Flows
are
routed
through
the
overlay
network
using
P2P
tunnels
between
every
other
MidoNet
agent
endpoint,
which
creates
a
fully
meshed
virtual
network
topology.
Remote
MidoNet-­‐enabled
endpoints
can
provide
inter-­‐domain
network
normalization
by
leveraging
the
VPN
service.
Multi-­‐tenancy
can
be
extended
across
inter-­‐domain
boundaries
by
assigning
the
appropriate
role
to
the
endpoint.
Midokura
supports
limited
L4
services,
specifically
targeting
load
balancing,
NAT,
DHCP
and
firewall
functionality.
MidoNet
does
not
leverage
OpenFlow
to
communicate,
using
instead
a
proprietary
bi-­‐directional
protocol
to
share
state
and
session
between
the
Network
State
Database
and
appropriate
endpoints.
MidoNet
also
does
not
take
advantage
of
existing
protocol-­‐based
virtualization
efforts,
eschewing
the
popular
VXLAN
and
NVGRE
protocols
for
its
own
“tenant
id”
to
provide
the
isolation
required
to
implement
multi-­‐tenant
support.
Advantages
-­‐ Non-­‐disruptive
to
existing
architecture
-­‐ Does
not
require
new
physical
network
infrastructure
-­‐ Shared
state
and
session
model
enables
rapid
response
to
failure
-­‐ Multi-­‐tenancy
and
related
isolation
does
not
rely
on
traditional
protocols
extensions
that
would
require
changes
to
core
network
characteristics,
e.g.
MTU.
Disadvantages
-­‐ Does
not
address
operational
challenges
in
managing
existing
L2/L3
network
-­‐ Resource
burden
on
hosts
from
agents
an
unknown

4. Midokura
A
Briefing
Note
by
Lori
MacVittie
-­‐ Visibility
into
existing
L2/L3
network
status
and
reaction
to
failure
in
physical
network
may
be
limited
-­‐ Lack
of
support
for
Windows-­‐based
MidoNet
agent
may
be
problematic
for
enterprises
-­‐ Use
of
proprietary
protocol
for
multi-­‐tenancy
may
inhibit
interoperability
with
other
models
Competitors
1. Network
Virtualization
a. Vyatta
b. Embrane
c. Nicira
(VMware)
d. Xsigo
(Oracle)
2. Protocol-­‐based
Virtualization
a. Brocade
b. Citrix
(Xen)
c. Juniper
d. Big
Switch
e. Arista
f. Microsoft
g. VMware
3. Centralized
Control-­‐Based
Networks
a. IBM
b. Dell
c. HP
d. Cisco
e. Radware
f. Juniper
g. Big
Switch
h. Arista
Summary
Midokura
brings
a
fairly
unique
offering
to
the
SDN
table
by
applying
traditional
shared-­‐session
architectural
models
to
nascent
network
virtualization
models.
Combined
with
a
role-­‐based
service
model,
MidoNet
appears
to
have
resolved
existing
challenges
with
SDN
around
resiliency
and
scale
as
related
to
centralized
controller
models.
It
remains
to
be
seen
if
performance
of
the
resulting
virtual
network
and
ramifications
on
capacity
(and
therefore
cost)
from
an
agent-­‐based
model
will
be
able
to
satisfy
the
demanding
requirements
of
not
only
service
providers
but
an
increasing
number
of
enterprises.