
Mavericks Invent Future Internet Where Cisco Is Meaningless - nikunjk
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/04/nicira/
======
trout
There's a lot of hype here. Most of what they're claiming to be their product
is just the direction of the datacenter industry. The idea of routing L2 over
L3 (VXLAN, OTV, NVGRE) and new hypervisor switches isn't earth shattering,
simply a new set of ideas that are being created in many places at the same
time.

This specific product really only works in environments that are using linux
based hypervisors (Xen/KVM/Openstack) in a datacenter environment. It doesn't
address the typical campus network, or the more common ESX/ESXi/HyperV
virtualization environments. The major block for most vswitches is VMware's
lack of flexibility for other hypervisor network switches. The only option is
the Nexus 1000V, and it's comparable to the dVs. The problem with both is that
it requires Enterprise plus licensing which is roughly twice the cost of
Standard.

In short, the difference between Nicira and the 1000V using VXLAN is not
large. They both have hypervisors independent of switching fabric that allow
large scale L2 flexibility. The only difference is hypervisor availability. It
may be a while until we see VMware loosen up on their hypervisor, and equally
time until things like the 1000V make it to Xen/Openstack.

Here's a better breakdown of what's actually happening for the
networking/virtualization curious: [http://blog.ioshints.info/2012/02/nicira-
open-vswitch-inside...](http://blog.ioshints.info/2012/02/nicira-open-vswitch-
inside-vsphereesx.html) <http://blog.ioshints.info/2012/02/nicira-
uncloaked.html>

~~~
drucken
Those links are very useful. However, I note that at each refuted point, the
author is constantly being surprised by an actor creating a solution that does
indeed do something new. This includes interoperability with VMWare
hypervisors and userland networking performance with virtual networks.

Given the above and that most networking hardware is still configured by
hardware engineers, this sector does seem ripe for disruption.

~~~
trout
I'm a networking guy, and wouldn't consider myself a hardware person by any
means. Sure, I'm not a coder, but I don't think it's accurate to call it
hardware. Very little network engineering is hardware specific. Hardware goes
bad, and there are cabling issues, but those problems will exist as long as
networks have wires.

The challenging portion of configuring networks is keeping track of all the
stacks and protocols. MAC, IP, virtual L2 features, virtual L3 features,
virtual L2 with L3 features, routing virtualization, L2 loop
detection/prevention, L3 loop detection/prevention, maximizing bandwidth
without adding complexity or cost, multicast delivery strategy,
broadcast/multicast control, best practices, and integration the
application/TCP layer as well. I would say nearly all of those problems exist
with or without something like OpenFlow, and it's already software. I love
this part about networking, as every layer in the stack is modular and can be
virtualized, so you're continually keeping track of protocols on top of
protocols, and it all evolves so quickly. To say network engineers are no
longer necessary after you virtualize networking is analogous to trying to cut
90% of server support staff once you're 90% virtualized. The added complexity
may just compensate for the lack of hardware.

The other option is once the virtualization density is so high that virtual
routers become feasible, and virtualized switches have more value, that you
start to see 'hardware' go away. There are some very large cloud providers
that are at this scale and can benefit, but the everyday enterprise isn't
quite there yet. That's why these technologies are still a few years from
mainstream, but they will definitely catch on.

Outside the datacenter, and even for the data center core, I think we'll
continue to see customized silicon as opposed to commodity computing
processors pushing the network traffic. Even the 'software' Google switches
are on something like the Broadcom chip set, specific to network forwarding.
Cisco's one of the few companies that develop their own chip set, which is one
of the points of contention in the article, but they continue to find reasons
to justify the cost.

------
cwp
Ugh. I hate this kind of article. It hypes a new technology without bothering
to explain how it works or even what it does. It might as well be a tweet:

    
    
      Martin Casado is hellasmart. Nicira is the VMware of networking. 
      Check out Open vSwitch http://openvswitch.org/

~~~
gcb
hum, that's why you avoid clicking wired.com links

they all are like that. It's basically TED in print. With expensive watch ads.

------
tptacek
There's a startup to be done that will make IP itself meaningless; what we
need is a generalized, bidirectional overlay datagram service (think: Akamai,
but for packets, not files --- or, Akamai crossed with Skype) with abstracted
addressing. We tried to build this in '99 but failed for want of a killer app
for the service (also, we failed because our VCs installed management that
felt our best bet was to take our series A and try to compete directly with
Akamai by building colos).

This is, I think, the long term answer to both network neutrality and the IPv4
address crunch; IP could be relegated to a similar long-term role as Ethernet.

~~~
nitrogen
So you're thinking of something like CCNx (<http://www.ccnx.org/>)?

~~~
tptacek
Sure; "Content Centric Networking" or "Content Based Addressing" is, I think,
a TIBCO term, which I think stems from Cheriton's TRIAD project at Stanford.

------
pragmatic
> “The truth is, in 10 years, you’re not going to have highly skilled, highly
> paid people working with networking hardware.”

I'm skeptical.

PC/Server virtualization didn't make IT go away, instead it made the job more
complex. Now you need someone to run the VMware cluster and understand the
nuances of virtualization. You still have a bunch of servers to patch and
backup. And you still need the help desk to fix the same problems we've always
had (printer doesn't work, my internet is down).

However, you gain a lot of flexibility and agility (which is the point of the
article).

I've just not seen new technology reduce _technology_ jobs. In fact its
usually the opposite. We need to coin some kind of catchy "law meme" like
Greenspun's tenth rule, Conway's, Sturgeon's etc.

~~~
capitolhill
You're right. Typically, greater investments will always follow improvements
in efficiency, due to the improved ROI. If it suddenly becomes easy to deploy
geographically dispersed, multi-tenant networks that are easier to manage the
result will be more multi-tenant, geographically dispersed networks.

Highly skilled people may not be working with networking hardware per say, but
they will certainly be doing networking.

------
pragmatic
I really wonder how the plan to virtualize all the network equipment.

With VMWare (and others) you had a fixed set of OS'es that mostly assumed a
homogenous x86 platform to run on.

But this seems to be the opposite. You have a (very) heterogeneous physical
layer and with a homogeneous software layer.

Anyone have any details on this?

I work at a telco with very heterogeneous network, we have to run a lot of
separate and expensive (b/c of oracle/solaris licensing) management software
to make this all work. So this is obviously interesting to me.

------
casca
"Nicira, the most intriguing startup in Silicon Valley". Really? It's not
clear why a virtual switching company is the most intriguing but I guess if
Wired says so...

~~~
dgritsko
The title may be a little hyperbolic, but if you read the article, the
implications of what Nicira is working towards are indeed quite impressive --
and not just because "Wired says so".

~~~
unwind
My take was more like the title might be a little hyperbolic, but if you read
the article you will find something VERY hyperbolic. Whoa.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
They must have quite the PR firm to get a piece _that_ positive in Wired (or
Wired has blurred the line of where its advertisements end).

------
amalag
Software networking is clearly the future. It is probably long term, but
complex hardware switches which do not use commodity processors and commodity
software languages will definitely fall by the wayside, even if they are as
big and bad as Cisco. Vyatta was a first attempt at a software router, but
this is really the next step at software switches.

~~~
mjwalshe
Hmm some times custom hardware is needed for switching just of the top of my
head you not going to impliment CAM on a bog standard hardware are you.

I could imagine some custom FPGA based modules that you could reprogram on the
fly when you needed to regonfigure your networking hardware I am not sure what
that buys you networking quipment doesnt have the scale that say a standard pc
does apart from maybe acess level switches.

At this moment this seems to be more of a point and drool interface for those
that cant hack IOS or pass the CCIE exam.

~~~
wmf
There's some interesting (one might say verging on dishonest) terminology
here. An incredibly complex and specialized Broadcom switch chip is defined as
"commodity" while a very similar Cisco switch chip is defined as
"proprietary". What is being commented on is really business models
(horizontal vs. vertical integration), not technical aspects.

------
swombat
This sounds like bad news for freedom of the internet. The easier it is to
code up filtering, blocking, detection, etc, the harder it is to have a free
internet.

~~~
wmf
If we're relying on censorship being too expensive then we've already lost.

------
xtacy
Open Networking Summit (<http://opennetsummit.org/>) is a three day conference
just for SDN/OpenFlow. If you're interested in seeing what companies are doing
with OpenFlow, you should check it out.

Incidentally, this year's summit starts today.

------
joejohnson
Here is a video from Nicira's website explaining virtual networks:
<http://bcove.me/xms70po8>

~~~
achy
Note: The term 'explaining' was used with extreme liberality above!

~~~
nextstep
The video explains what Nicira means when they use "virtual networks". The
video does not explain how they implement any of this.

------
munin
if the one thing this article does is take you to <http://www.openflow.org/>
and get you to read some things, I think it's served enough of a purpose.
openflow is really neat and will let you do things with your network that you
probably think should already be possible.

------
iamgopal
nice website of nicira. <http://nicira.com/>

