I just finished the first lab module on the Big Switch Networks SDN controller. The lab was very well structured and gave me a good feel for how it works and how it would compare to managing a similar Cisco style network. The concepts would take a little getting used to but the overall impression is that the learning curve would not be that steep. The BSN Controller uses a standard Cisco CLI like interface to show and modify the configuration. All components, spine and leaf switches, routers, tenants, etc. are contained in the same configuration file so I can see a CLI solution becoming cumbersome after a while as the file would get very large in a real datacenter. However, being able to look at specifics of the configuration via CLI is always nice and troubleshooting using debug commands is also a great benefit.
The module ended with a review of the GUI which is probably the way to go for day to day operations. Of course in a real productive system, the biggest benefits will come with orchestration and integration into either an OpenStack or VMWare solution.
Here is an excerpt from the configuration for reference based on the following topology…
54 login: admin admin@54.166.155.75's password: Last login: Mon Aug 3 06:39:47 2015 from 54.224.58.210 Big Cloud Fabric Appliance 2.6.0 (bcf-2.6.0 #265) Logged in as admin, 2015-08-03 07:51:42.971000 UTC, auth from 54.224.58.210 10.37.169.132> en 10.37.169.132# sh run ! ! Big Cloud Fabric Appliance 2.6.0 (bcf-2.6.0 #265) ! Current Time: 2015-08-03.07:51:49 ! version 1.0
! ntp ntp server 0.us.pool.ntp.org
! aaa aaa accounting exec default start-stop local
! local local node interface ethernet0 service openflow service secure-api service secure-ns-api service secure-web service ssh service sync service syslog service web
! user user admin full-name 'Default admin' hashed-password method=PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1,salt=bfklbm1eiP8UB9Rx2tRbnA, rounds=10000,Ei1Sj4GiBNZchV707iJ1jrXb Ca_L26KhmoT5t22cxyg
! group group admin associate user admin
! controller controller name VirgoSupercluster
! switch switch R1L1 fabric-role leaf leaf-group R1 mac 00:00:00:02:00:01
switch R1L2 fabric-role leaf leaf-group R1 mac 00:00:00:02:00:02
switch R2L1 fabric-role leaf leaf-group R2 mac 00:00:00:02:00:03
switch R2L2 fabric-role leaf leaf-group R2 mac 00:00:00:02:00:04
switch R3L1 fabric-role leaf leaf-group R3 mac 00:00:00:02:00:05
switch R3L2 fabric-role leaf leaf-group R3 mac 00:00:00:02:00:06
switch S1 fabric-role spine mac 00:00:00:01:00:01
switch S2 fabric-role spine mac 00:00:00:01:00:02
switch S3 fabric-role spine mac 00:00:00:01:00:03
! port-group port-group FW-01 member switch R3L1 interface R3L1-eth5 member switch R3L2 interface R3L2-eth5
port-group R1H1 member switch R1L1 interface R1L1-eth5 member switch R1L2 interface R1L2-eth5
port-group R1H2 member switch R1L1 interface R1L1-eth6 member switch R1L2 interface R1L2-eth6
port-group R2H1 member switch R2L1 interface R2L1-eth5 member switch R2L2 interface R2L2-eth5
port-group R2H2 member switch R2L1 interface R2L1-eth6 member switch R2L2 interface R2L2-eth6
port-group RTR-01 member switch R3L1 interface R3L1-eth6 member switch R3L2 interface R3L2-eth6
port-group RTR-02 member switch R3L1 interface R3L1-eth7 member switch R3L2 interface R3L2-eth7
! tenant tenant External logical-router route 10.0.0.0/24 next-hop tenant system route 10.0.1.0/24 next-hop tenant system route 10.0.2.0/24 next-hop tenant system route 0.0.0.0/0 next-hop rtr interface segment Ext-01 ip address 10.0.3.1/24 interface segment Ext-02 ip address 10.0.4.1/24 interface tenant system next-hop-group rtr ip 10.0.3.2 ip 10.0.4.2 segment Ext-01 member port-group RTR-01 vlan untagged segment Ext-02 member port-group RTR-02 vlan untagged tenant Green logical-router route 0.0.0.0/0 next-hop tenant system interface segment QA ip address 10.0.2.1/24 interface tenant system segment QA member port-group R2H2 vlan untagged tenant Red logical-router apply policy-list FireWall route 0.0.0.0/0 next-hop tenant system interface segment App ip address 10.0.1.1/24 interface segment FW-01 ip address 10.0.5.1/24 interface segment Web ip address 10.0.0.1/24 interface tenant system next-hop-group ServiceNode ip 10.0.5.2 policy-list FireWall 10 permit segment-interface Web any to tenant Red segment App next-hop ServiceNode 11 permit any to any segment App member port-group R2H1 vlan untagged segment FW-01 member port-group FW-01 vlan untagged segment Web member port-group R1H1 vlan untagged member port-group R1H2 vlan untagged tenant system logical-router route 0.0.0.0/0 next-hop tenant External interface tenant External interface tenant Green interface tenant Red