OFTest is a Python based validation framework for testing OpenFlow switches.  It is intended to complement and eventually replace the current Perl “blackbox” tests which are distributed with the OpenFlow reference release.

A preliminary release of the OFTest framework, code named dragonfly-1.0, is now available.  It can be downloaded with git via the command:  git  clone git://openflow.org/oftest.git.  Tar files of the core and pre-built directories are available at http://openflow.org/oftest.  The test framework is currently targeted to 1.0 but will be updated for 1.1 as that standard evolves.

You can subscribe to the OFTest email list which provides community support for the project at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/openflow-testing.

Various documents related to OFTest are available on the OpenFlow wiki.  The read-me file is available at OFTestReadme.  A tutorial is in the works and can be seen at OFTestTutorial.  A list of currently implemented test cases and planned test coverage is at OFTestListPage.  This is an open source project and contributions in the way of test cases and framework enhancements from the OpenFlow community are strong encouraged.

No Comments » | Permalink

Today was the demo session at the GENI Engineering Conference in San Diego and the demos included a number of OpenFlow systems.

OpenFlow at GEC8

• Integrated Control Framework Demo by a joint team of Stanford University and BBN. Using the OMNI command line tool, a researcher can reserve both PlanetLab compute nodes as well as an OpenFlow based networking substrate. The demo used the Expedient aggregate manager for OpenFlow Networks as well as the Opt-In manager. Essentially all of this demo came together over the past 4 weeks due to a heroic effort of the Stanford and BBN teams. Wiki page with more information is here.
• Expedient, a control framework with a graphical UI for OpenFlow based resources. The version demonstrated additionally can be accessed via the GENI API through a proxy.
• Aster*x, the OpenFlow based load balancer. This is the successor to the plug-n-serve system and the demo ran across a number of OpenFlow networks including Stanford, BBN, Princeton, Indiana and University of Washington.
• Transport and Aggregation. This was a combination of the aggregation demo from SIGCOMM 2009 and the optical transport integration done together with CIENA.
• WiMax. A demo from the OpenRoads team done together with two other WiMax demos at the conference.
• Clemson University showed their graphical UI for configuring the slices on their local OpenFlow deployment. The UI looked great and there are a number of similarities with the Expedient UI.

Thanks to the 20+ people involved in putting these demos together, they were a big success. A few pictures below, more in the photo gallery of the demo session.

No Comments » | Permalink

Prof Nick McKeown recently presented a talk on Software Defined Networks (SDN) at GigaOM Network’s Structure 2010 conference. One main thesis of SDN is the separation of control logic from forwarding logic; control logic running externally to the high-speed forwarding logic makes the decisions about how and where network traffic is forwarded. This allows new services and routing algorithms to be deployed by upgrading only the control software; the forwarding elements can remain unchanged.

A video of Nick’s presentation can be seen by viewing the rest of this entry.

Read the rest of this entry »

No Comments » | Permalink