Deploying SDN in G\'EANT production network

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the deployment of SDN in GÉANT's production network, showcasing how virtualization and automation improve service provisioning, fault management, and operational efficiency in a large-scale research network.

Contribution

It introduces the SDX-L2 and BoD SDN-ization of GÉANT services, highlighting their deployment, operational testing, and automation capabilities in a real-world production environment.

Findings

Successful pilot deployment of SDN services in GÉANT

Automated network management during faults

Enhanced service provisioning and operational resilience

Abstract

Since the demand for more bandwidth, agile infrastructures and services grows, it becomes challenging for Service Providers like G\'EANT to manage the proprietary underlay, while keeping costs low. In such a scenario, Software Defined Networking (SDN), open hardware and open source software prove to be key components to address those challenges. After one year of development, SDX-L2 and BoD, the SDN-ization of the G\'EANT Open and Bandwidth on Demand (BoD) services, have been brought to the pilot status and G\'EANT is now testing the outcomes on its operational network. In this demonstration, we show BoD and SDX-L2 "going live" at the G\'EANT production infrastructure. The pilots run on the same underlay infrastructure thanks to the virtualization capabilities of the network devices. Provisioning of the services is covered during the demo. In the final steps of the demonstration, we show how the infrastructure is able to automatically manage network events and how it remains operational in the case of fault events.