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Who Moved My Control Plane

Jordan Martin has a problem. The idea of moving the control plane from a device to a central controller sounds like it makes a lot of sense in SDN. I mean, it’s called a control plane, why not move it to a controller? Despite the phonic similarity, this isn’t actually what happens.

Jordan takes the time to actually define what he means by the control plane, and shows why moving it to a controller makes the network less reliable and more inefficient. It’s an insightful breakdown of why something that seems common sense  is much more problematic.

Jordan Martin comments:

One of the more popular misconceptions about SDN is that this new model of networking moves the control plane from a device to a controller.  As much as it sounds like a network controller would be the control plane for a network, it simply isn’t true.  For some, I believe this mistake is simply a lack of attention to terminology.  For others, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that controller based networking works.  Either way, it’s important that we, as network engineers, understand the concept as we move into the brave new world of orchestrated networks.

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About the author

Rich Stroffolino

Rich has been a tech enthusiast since he first used the speech simulator on a Magnavox Odyssey². Current areas of interest include ZFS, the false hopes of memristors, and the oral history of Transmeta.

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