DPI in an SDN world Charles Glass. Abstract SDN brings the promise of agile and elastic networks. DPI vendors have been quick to embrace SDN, and African.

DPI in an SDN world

Charles Glass

DPI seeks to make the network application-aware, while SDN seeks to make applications network-aware

(Heavy Reading, 2012)

SDN

DPI

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What is DPI?DPI helps operators regain control over a network that is now primarily carrying third-party applications and services, by accurately identifying those applications in real time.

Source: Online-edge

(Heavy Reading, 2012)

DPI High-level Architecture

• Control Layer• Data Layer– Load balancing– Inspection– Enforcement

• ManagementSource: Cisco

What is SDN?The physical separation of the network control plane from the forwarding plane, and where a control plane controls several devices.

Application layer

Source: Network Computing

(Heavy Reading, 2012)

Control layer

Infrastructure layer

High-level SDN Architecture

• Application Layer• Control layer• Infrastructure

layer• Management

Source: ONF

Build-up to SDN

• DPI– Will it still be relevant?– Where will it be located?

• NFV– Complementary to SDN– Encourage virtualisation of network functions– DPI a strong candidate for virtualisation

• Network Virtualisation

Bridging the gap• Core concepts in todays networks– Policy– DPI

• SDN focused on Layers 2-3• How do we bridge the gap?

Will operators still need DPI?

• Fundamentals of DPI have not changed– Identify traffic in real-time– Associate with other data• Subscriber• Location• Device

SDN Applications

• Applications in SDN need a complete view of the network– DPI could feed information to the controller?– Killer app for DPI?

Locating DPI in an SDN

• Collocated with network devices• In the controller• Collocated with controller• Extensions to the flow table to include an

application ID

Benefits for African Operators

• DPI components are being virtualized in the build-up to SDN– NFV is the main driver– Early days?

• Benefits– Simpler deployment, update and testing– Scale to changing workloads– Lower cost– Reduced complexity– Open standards

Industry View

• DPI – Some large deployments..

• SDN– Not so many..

• Use cases– African Operators

Q&A

Source: Cisco blog – Stephen Spiershttp://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/sdn-adoption-challenges-my-wrap-up-for-2013