SDN- NFV Certified from Metro Ethernet Forum

It has been a while since I have blogged any updates, so I'll knock out a few!

First, I just completed the course and certification from Metro Ethernet Forum for SDN-NFV.

This was a 3 day course, and it was surprisingly hands-on as it focused heavily on OpenFlow and OpenDaylight. I was always wanting to learn more about these, so I found this quite rewarding.

One interesting stumbling block in the labs was the fact that there is a -O option that needs to be used to specify the proper version of OpenFlow. 

The course seemed to focus on the use case and context of using OpenFlow (and OpenDaylight) to configure switches - but not "everything else" out there in the field of networking that could be configured with something like OpenFlow.

For example, it was my understanding that the primary beneficiary of something like OpenFlow (and OpenDaylight) was in the Wireless (802.11x) domain, where people had scores, hundreds or even thousands of access points that had to be configured or upgraded, and it was extremely difficult to this by hand.

But, the course focused on switches - OpenVSwitch switches to be precise. And that was probably because the OpenVSwitch keeps things simple enough for the course and instructor.

Problem is, in my shop, everyone is using Juniper switches, and Juniper does not play ball with OpenFlow and OpenVSwitch. So I'm not sure how much this can or will be put to use in our specific environment. I do, however, use OpenVSwitch in my own personal OpenVSwitch-based OpenStack environment, and since OpenVSwitch works well with DPDK and VPP, this knowledge can come in handy as I need to start doing more sophisticated things with packet flows.

Nontheless, I found the course interesting and valuable. And the exam also centered around the ETSI-MANO Reference Architecture. I had familiar with this architecture, but like all exams like this, I missed questions because of time, or overthinking things, or picking the wrong of two correct answers (not the best answer), et al. But, I passed the exam, and I guess that's what matters most.

OpenContrail - Part 1

When I came to this shop and found out that they were running OpenStack but were not running Neutron, I about panicked. Especially when I found out they were running OpenContrail.

OpenContrail uses BGP and XMPP as its control plane protocols and route advertisements/exchanges. And it uses MPLS over GRE/UDP to direct packets. The documentation says it CAN use VXLAN - which Neutron also seems to favor (over GRE tunneling). But here at least, it is being run in the way the designed of OpenContrail wanted it to run - which is as an MPLS L3VPN.

I am going to drop some links in here real quick and come back and flush this blog entry out.

Here is an Architectural Guide on OpenContrail. Make sure you have time to digest this.

https://www.juniper.net/us/en/local/pdf/whitepapers/2000535-en.pdf

Once you read the architecture, here is a Gitbook on OpenContrail that can be used to get more familiarity.

https://sureshkvl.gitbooks.io/opencontrail-beginners-tutorial/content/

Perhaps the stash of gold was the location of a 2013 video from one of the developers of vRouter itself. It turns out most of the stuff in this video is still relevant for OpenContrail several years later. I could not find these slides anywhere, so I did make my own slide deck that highlights important discussions that took place on this video, as well as some of the key concepts shown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhn7AYvv2Yg

If you read these, you are halfway there. Maybe more than halfway actually.