OpenStack Neutron &

Software Defined Networks (SDN)

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014
Iaki Pascual Software Engineer

Acknowledgments
I want to thank all the developers and members in OpenStack Community, OpenStack
Foundation and Open Networking Foundation. Also to my colleges in PLUMgrid Inc.
Information presented here is sourced from my own experience as PLUMgrid employee and from:

OpenStack Foundation Documents & Community

Open Networking Foundation

Stanford Seminar 2013 - Software-Defined Networking at the Crossroads by Scott Shenker,

University of California, Berkeley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WabdXYzCAOU

OpenStack Summit Presentations

OpenStack Neutron Modular Layer 2 Plugin Deep Dive"
By: Kyle Mestery,Robert Kukura in OpenStack
https://www.openstack.org/summit/openstack-summit-hong-kong-2013/session-videos/presentat

ion/openstack-neutron-modular-layer-2-plugin-deep-dive
PLUMgrid Inc, http://plumgrid.com/resources/

Views and technical points expressed here are solely presenters and doesnt reflect the
views/positions of PLUMgrid Inc in any way.

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Agenda

Demo. Intro to Neutron (Havana release).

Dashboard and CLI overview.

Create networks, spawn VMs, test connectivity.

Floating IPs, create, assign. Test external connectivity.

Load Balancer create and test.

Test isolation of overlapping networks.

Slides. Neutron Overview

Network as a Service *(NaaS)

Components

Architecture

New plugin ML2.

Demo. Neutron.

REST API example with curl.

View components, network namespaces, soft switches.

Slides. SDN.

Definition, architecture.

Virtual Networks.

Software Edges.

Example: PLUMgrid.

Conclusions. Neutron and SDN.

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Demo
Dashboard and CLI overview.
Create Networks, spawn VMs, test connectivity.
Create and assign floating IPs, test external access.
Load balancer create and test.
Overlapping IPs, test tenant isolation.

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Neutron in Openstack

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Neutron in Openstack

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Network as a Service (NaaS)

Provides REST APIs to manage network connections for the
resources managed by other OpenStack Services (e.g. Nova)
Technology Agnostic (framework based on plug-ins)
Multi-tenancy: Isolation, Abstraction, full control over virtual
networks
Modular Design: API specifies service, vendor provides its
implementation. Extensions for vendor-specific features.
Standalone Service : It is not exclusive to OpenStack. Neutron
is an autonomous service
Exposes vendor-specific network virtualization and SDN
technologies

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Neutron Components

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Neutron Components
Neutron Server
Runs on Controller node.
Exposes API. Enforces network model.
Passes requests to Neutron plugin.
Neutron Plugin
Runs on Controller node.
Implements the API.
Interacts with neutron server, database and agents.
Queue
Enhance communication between each components of neutron
Database
Persistent network model
Plugin agent (*)
Run on each compute node
Connect instances to network port
DHCP Agent (*)
Start/stop dhcp server
Maintain dhcp configuration
L3 Agent (*)
To implement floating IPs and other L3 features, such as NAT
(*) These components may be overridden by the plug-in
Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Modular Layer 2 Plug-in (ML2)

New in Havana, deprecates the OpenVSwitch and LinuxBridge plug-ins

(but not the agents).

Modularity through drivers:

TypeDrivers: flat, VLAN, GRE...

Mechanism Drivers: OVS, LinuxBridge...

One mechanism Driver may support several Type Drivers.

Vendors may implement a new plug-in or a mechanism driver.

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Network Devices Compute Node

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Network Devices - Network Node.

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Demo (II)
Neutron REST API, example with curl.
Neutron Internals:
Network namespaces DHCP, Router, LoadBalancer
OVS Bridges - VLANs

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Demo (II)
Neutron API example with cURL.
How to update a network:
1.- get the token from keystone
2.- list existing networks to get id of network to update
3.- update network name
After these, check in Dashboard that name has actually changed
$ export IP=<host_ip>
$ export PASS=<admin_password>
$ curl -d "{\"auth\":{\"tenantName\": \"admin\", \"passwordCredentials\":
{\"username\": \"admin\", \"password\": \"$PASS\"}}}" -H "Content-type: application/json"
http://$IP:35357/v2.0/tokens
$ export TOKEN=<token_id>
$ curl -H "X-Auth-Token: $TOKEN" http://$IP:9696/v2.0/networks
$ export NET=<network_id>
$ curl -H "X-Auth-Token: $TOKEN" -X PUT -d '{"network": {"name": "network_updated"}}'
http://10.0.2.15:9696/v2.0/networks/$NET.json
APIs:
http://docs.openstack.org/api/openstack-identity-service/2.0/content/POST_authenticate_v2.0_
tokens_.html
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Neutron/APIv2-specification#API_Operations

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Demo (II)
Show soft bridges. We can see the vlan tags in integration bridge.
$ sudo ovs-vsctl show
e80f467f-bd33-452a-a495-e7c89736c552
Bridge br-int
Port "tap0b53fd22-35"
tag: 2
Interface "tap0b53fd22-35"
Port "tapd7e7242f-64"
tag: 3
Interface "tapd7e7242f-64"
Port br-int
Interface br-int
type: internal
Port "qr-63a50193-d2"
tag: 2
Interface "qr-63a50193-d2"
type: internal
Port "qr-2ad51820-c7"
tag: 1
Interface "qr-2ad51820-c7"
type: internal
Port "tap2f696f92-6c"
tag: 2
Interface "tap2f696f92-6c"
type: internal
...

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Demo (II)
Show network namespaces
$ ip netns show
qlbaas-9035ea38-1916-4cf9-855f-06f1a41b1899
qdhcp-a389d59d-5275-4470-9edf-44bf7de6cb0f
qdhcp-f030bfa9-5209-477b-a260-e0bc552ebffd
qrouter-9de1459b-c453-485c-b89e-99cb09e82371
qrouter-91a3612b-835c-400b-b8db-6d11dade6b11

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Demo (II)
Execute commands in network namespaces
$ sudo ip netns exec qdhcp-a389d59d-5275-4470-9edf-44bf7de6cb0f ifconfig
lo
Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
tapae991773-bd Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr fa:16:3e:80:a8:0f
inet addr:30.0.0.4 Bcast:30.0.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::f816:3eff:fe80:a80f/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:40 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:25 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:5048 (5.0 KB) TX bytes:3074 (3.0 KB)
inaki@precise:~/devstack$ sudo ip netns exec qdhcp-a389d59d-5275-4470-9edf-44bf7de6cb0f
tcpdump -i tapae991773-bd
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on tapae991773-bd, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535 bytes

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

SDN Introduction

Why SDN?:

Networks have a high operational cost.

Networks are difficult to evolve.

There is a need for NaaS

2008: The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) releases

OpenFlow (Standford University) and NOX (Nicira).

There was previous efforts like Software Defined Radio, MPLS

and other works in Universities and Companies' labs.

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

SDN Definition (by Open Networking Foundation)

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

SDN Architecture

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Network Virtualization

Neutron & SDN

In the original SDN 3-layer architecture,

the control programs are aware of the
underlying physical network.

New intermediate layer allows operator

to express his needs in a higher level
language, so decoupling from the
physical infrastructure.

Network hypervisor will convert them

into Network OS language.

Allows the creation of tenant isolated

virtual networks.

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Core/Edge Nodes Differentiation

Neutron & SDN

Concept borrowed from MPLS. Two

different kind of nodes: core/edge.

Core: Transport packets among edge

nodes.

Edges: nodes connected to hosts.

All functionalities can be moved to

edges while core can focus on
transport.

Edge nodes became Software Edges.

SDN Controller need to talk only to

edge nodes.

Actually part of the SDN work can be

done by the software edges.
OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

SDN Example: PLUMgrid.

http://plumgrid.com/resources/

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Neutron & SDN

Centralized

control plane allows creating isolated

tenant virtual networks.

Compute
Neutron

nodes are the software edges.

enforces SDN but actually delegates its

implementation and functionalities to the plugin.

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Thank you!

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014

Neutron & SDN

OpenStack BCN MeetUp - March 2014