Google has begun testing of the OpenFlow protocol on the connections between data centers. The protocol is intended to servers directly switches to send network configuration can be simplified.
Traditionally determines the routing table, often with proprietary firmware that has been processed in switches and routers, the path that data packets must travel. Switches that have the OpenFlow protocol to support the high-level routing however, by other systems of control. That can servers, but other network devices.
More and more hardware manufacturers, including Juniper, Cisco, HP and IBM, support the network protocol in their switches and routers. OpenFlow would also particularly suitable for cloud computing platforms that use different data centers, but the protocol would also be useful for high-security data networks.
In an interview with GigaOM let Google know to be interested in the application of OpenFlow. According to Google OpenFlow may be more ‘intelligence’ in the network bring, because the ip traffic via algorithms for certain tasks can be optimized. So would networks more efficient, and therefore cheaper, can be used, because network management is less complex. In addition, the software-based OpenFlow controllers on conventional hardware running.
The search giant has already started with the testing of the network protocol, direct data connections between various data centers. How many data centers involved in the trial, the zoekreus is not lost. Google would also still not too early to applaud; so there would have been problems to the test network to communicate with networks with OpenFlow work, but ‘traditional’ protocols such as bgp, or mpls. Google hopes that with the further maturing of the young protocol, such problems will disappear.