A coordinated virtual infrastructure for SDN in enterprise networks

Increasing agility and automation in the data centre to optimise application delivery requires a complete, end-to-end, coordinated virtual infrastructure. This infrastructure will allow applications and the physical network to collaborate, thereby providing a high quality experience for users and enabling optimisation of resources.

The ideal solution should follow a Software Defined Networking (SDN) approach. This will allow it to bridge the gap between the network world and the newly virtualised compute world by defining a framework that uses standardised interfaces between applications and networks.

Likewise, it should be flexible enough to leverage multiple methods, including OpenFlow, to provide direct access to all virtual and physical objects in the data centre and enable manipulation of the forwarding plane of physical and virtual network devices, such as switches and routers.