Course Overview

Software Defined Networking Carrier Grade is a three-day instructional course introducing students to Software Defined Networking, controller platforms, governing protocols, and applications. SDN leverages the available standard APIs to fundamentally shift the way traditional networks have been managed.

This course was developed with a focus on the service provider technician as a way to quickly understand what SDN is, what the components of different working SDN solutions are, and where in the market these solutions apply. The focus of this course is vendor neutral. Along with short lectures and discussion, students can expect hands-on demonstrations, labs, and review for students to start to gain experience with the fundamentals of Software Defined Networks.

CLASS INFORMATION
Price: 
$2,395
Duration: 
3 days
Exam: 
This course includes one exam voucher for the MEF-SNCP Exam.

  • Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

    • Define what SDN is fundamentally
    • Explain how SDN has evolved into its current applications
    • Recognize the emerging SDN protocols and their governing bodies
    • Compare SDN and controller based switching to traditional forwarding models
    • Focus on ODL as an open source solution
    • Compare other vendor products from VMware, Cisco, Juniper, and HPE
    • Dive in to the ODL history, architecture, and feature support
    • Explain the Southbound OpenFlow protocol and use case
    • Cover Northbound REST APIs access through YANG models and RESTCONF
    • Demonstrate practical SDN concepts through hands-on portable virtual labs
    • Service Chaining as examples of carrier NFV
    • MEF SD-WAN design and review

  • Module 1: SDN Put Simply

    1.1 Defining SDN By the Book

    • Traditional Networking Made Easy
    • The Problem with Tradition
    • Key Business Drivers towards SDN for SD-WAN
    • 1990s – SDN Early Beginnings
    • Control and Data Plane Separation: 2001 to 2007
    • OpenFlow API and NOS: 2007 to Present
    • Nicira and VMware 2012

    1.2 Governing Bodies

    • ONF: Open Networking Foundation
    • ODL: OpenDaylight
    • Open vSwitch and Mininet
    • OpenStack and Neutron
    • MEF: Metro Ethernet Forum

     

    Module 2: SDN Controllers

    2.1 SDN Controller Core Capabilities

    • Rich Southbound Support
    • Extensible API Support for Northbound Traffic
    • Programmability and Network Abstraction
    • Centralized Monitoring and Visualization
    • Reliability and Scalability with Clustering Using ZooKeeper
    • Security

    2.2 VMware and the Big Three Network Equipment Manufacturers

    • VMware: NSX
    • VMware: VXLAN Protocol
    • VMware: Nicira
    • Cisco ACI
    • Cisco APIC
    • Cisco Application Network Profile structure
    • Cisco: OpFlex versus OpenFlow
    • Juniper: Contrail, OpenContrail, Junos Fusion, and NorthStar
    • HPE VAN SDN Controller

    2.3 Other Controllers in the Market

     

    Module 3: Controller ODL Releases

    3.1 OpenDayLight Release History

    • Fluorine
    • Fluorine Architecture Diagram
    • Beryllium

    3.2 Controller Architecture

    • Beryllium Architecture Diagram
    • Northbound Facing
    • Southbound Facing
    • Controller and Clustering East-West
    • Service Abstraction Layer (SAL)
    • Karaf (Apache)
    • Java and Maven (Apache)
    • OSGi as a Java Platform

    3.3 Feature Support Overview

    • Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA)
    • Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP)
    • DLUX
    • L2 Switch
    • NETCONF
    • BGP-PCEP with BMP
    • OpFlex
    • Service Function Chaining (SFC)
    • Clustering and Shards

     

    Module 4: Southbound OpenFlow

    4.1 Traditional Legacy Switching

    • Switching 101
    • How do legacy switches communicate head-end to tail-end?

    4.2 How does running OpenFlow change things?

    • OpenFlow Pipeline
    • Hybrid or Pure?
    • Reactive and Proactive Flows
    • What OpenFlow is and what it is not
    • Bring your own application
    • Super-sizing your controller with remote proactive flows
    • The OpenFlow abstraction principle

    4.3 ONF and OpenFlow

    • Initial OpenFlow 1.0 Implementation
    • OpenFlow 1.0 Tables and Flow entries
    • Matching and Actions
    • Securing the channel
    • OpenFlow 1.3 Specification
    • OpenFlow 1.3 new Actions and Instructions
    • OpenFlow ports
    • OpenFlow 1.3 Pipeline
    • Group Types and Buckets
    • Additional Flow Matching Features Supported

     

    Module 5: Northbound REST APIs

    5.1 Northbound RESTCONF service

    • GET in action
    • PUT in action

    5.2 NETCONF and YANG: Yet Another Next Generation

    • Yang-UI toolbox module in ODL
    • Yang Visualizer

    5.3 Postman

    • Postman collections and folders
    • Headers and variables

    5.4 cURL

    • cURL in action
    • Objectives

     

    Module 6: In this Module, students will discuss:

    6.1 Service Chaining

    • SFC-UI Web Interface
    • SFC – CLI
    • SFC-OVS Support
    • OpenFlow Classifier
    • SFC OpenFlow Renderer
    • SFC-OVS Topology
    • SFC Scheduling Algorithms
    • Sample JSON for Scheduling
    • Requirements for SFC OF Renderer in Karaf

    6.2 Scaling Controllers through Clustering

    • Clustering Setup Steps
    • To enable the clustering service in Karaf:
    • Steps to enable a Multiple Node Cluster
    • Validate set up
    • Define seed nodes

     

    Module 7: MEF SD-WAN Design and Review

    7.1 SD-WAN Need to Know Terminology

    • NFVI
    • VNF and EMS
    • NFV-MANO or Management and Orchestration
    • OSS/BSS and NSD

    7.2 MEF defined SD-WAN Service

    • SD-WAN Edge
    • SD-WAN Gateway
    • SD-WAN Controller
    • SDN Service Orchestrator
    • Subscriber Interface (Web Portal)

    7.3 SD-WAN Overlays

    • Hybrid SD-WAN over a single ISP
    • SD-WAN service tunneled over multiple ISPs
    • SD-WAN from CPE to vCPE
    • SD-WAN Service with SD-WAN Edge VNF in the Cloud
    • SD-WAN with MPLS VPN

     

  • It is recommended but not required that students understand basic routing and switching.

  • The target audience for this class are networking engineers, service provider architect and engineers, and premise technology engineers looking to expand their understanding of SDN/NFV and MEF certification.