Better Together: SONiC & OpenDaylight Integration
In a world increasingly driven by phenomena, such as AI, it is easy to forget the importance of network reliability and throughput. The fundamental need for robust connectivity has always been present and remains a cornerstone of our digital infrastructure.
SONiC, an efficient data and control plane, and OpenDaylight, as a powerful and flexible management plane, can work together to significantly enhance network reliability and speed.
OpenDaylight’s centralized control allows for dynamic network management and policy enforcement, providing real-time insights and automated responses to network conditions.
SONiC, with its modular & containerized architecture, ensures high-performance packet processing and robust data plane operations. The integration of these two systems enables seamless coordination between management, control and data planes, resulting in improved network performance, reduced latency, and enhanced fault tolerance through proactive management and rapid recovery from issues.
What is SONiC?
SONiC, developed by Microsoft, is an open-source network operating system designed to run on network switches. Its architecture is modular, containerized, and built on a Linux-based foundation, offering a highly flexible environment for network operations. SONiC manages the control and data planes, which are essential for switch operations, and it allows for dynamic network configuration and monitoring through both CLI (Command-Line Interface) and structured APIs such as gNMI and YANG.
What is OpenDaylight?
OpenDaylight, an open-source SDN controller, was launched as part of the Linux Foundation project. Initially, its goal was to promote SDN adoption by providing vendor-agnostic control over networks. Today, OpenDaylight supports a wide range of network protocols, including BGP, NETCONF, and gNMI, offering cloud-native support and integration into multiple LF projects, such as ONAP and OPNFV.
Better Together
The true strength of these platforms lies in their integration. SONiC and OpenDaylight work together to provide a comprehensive solution for network management. SONiC manages the underlying switches and routers, while OpenDaylight oversees higher-level automation and orchestration. Together, they form a cohesive system that can manage diverse, multi-protocol network environments.
Interested in combining the strenghts of OpenDaylight & SONiC? Contact us today for a consultation!
Key benefits of this integration include:
Improved network automation
With SONiC providing operational simplicity through structured APIs and OpenDaylight enabling centralized control and policy enforcement, network administrators can automate routine tasks and complex configurations with ease.
Enhanced network reliability
The combination of SONiC’s efficient control plane and OpenDaylight’s centralized orchestration ensures a robust, reliable network infrastructure. By leveraging both platforms, networks are better equipped to handle increased traffic demands, while maintaining high availability.
Vendor-agnostic & flexible
OpenDaylight’s commitment to vendor-neutrality allows for seamless integration across different hardware vendors. SONiC’s modular architecture enables customization based on specific needs, providing flexibility for network operators.
What are the advantages?
One of the key advantages of using OpenDaylight with SONiC is its support for standardized APIs. The model-driven architecture of OpenDaylight, utilizing YANG, ensures consistent configurations across various network devices. This structure significantly reduces errors, promotes vendor independence, and enhances scalability, making it easier for network operators to expand or modify their network infrastructure without vendor lock-in.
OpenDaylight also excels in network orchestration and programmability. Its ability to work with multiple protocols (e.g., NETCONF, BGP, gNMI) means it can manage a wide range of devices within the same environment, enabling greater control and reducing operational overhead.
Model-Driven APIs vs. CLI
One of the ongoing debates in the networking world is whether to rely on model-driven APIs like gNMI/YANG or CLI-based management.
While CLI may provide more granular control for device-specific configurations, model-driven APIs offer significant advantages in terms of automation, error handling, and transactional support.
With APIs, operators can perform multiple changes in a single transaction, ensuring consistency and avoiding configuration errors. In contrast, CLI-based management is prone to inconsistencies, as each device may require different commands and manual error correction.
gNMI & RESTCONF
gNMI integration in SONiC is still a work-in-progress and promises a lot of neat features.
This unified integration with OpenDaylight’s RESTCONF would provide a consistent and standardized interface for interacting with various network devices. This integration would allow administrators to manage heterogeneous networks efficiently, simplifying operations and enabling a streamlined approach to network management.
Why should I care?
You should care because of real-life use-cases where this integration can be applied:
- Network service abstraction & model-to-model translation
SONiC and OpenDaylight enable seamless network service abstraction by translating models between RESTCONF and gNMI. This allows administrators to ensure that configuration intents are accurately reflected across different network protocols, simplifying the management of diverse infrastructures.
- Configuration intent datastore
With the integration of SONiC and OpenDaylight, administrators can leverage a configuration intent datastore. This datastore ensures that configuration changes are made with intent-based execution, reducing the risk of misconfigurations and enabling more reliable operations across network devices.
- RESTCONF-2-gNMI translation
OpenDaylight’s support for RESTCONF allows for efficient translation to gNMI, creating a consistent method for interacting with different network devices. This unification of interfaces simplifies network management, especially in heterogeneous environments with multiple protocols and vendors.
- RBAC
OpenDaylight’s architecture also allows for the integration of role-based access control. RBAC helps secure access to network devices by ensuring that users are given appropriate permissions based on their roles. This improves network security and reduces the risk of unauthorized changes.
- Separation of concerns and scalability
By integrating SONiC’s modular and containerized architecture with OpenDaylight’s orchestration capabilities, networks can adopt a clear separation of concerns. This means that network functions, automation, and control can scale independently, optimizing performance and making future expansions simpler and more efficient.
A SONiC & OpenDaylight integration provides a powerful, flexible, and scalable solution that enhances network reliability, enables automation, and ensures vendor-neutrality. For organizations looking to modernize their network infrastructure, the combination of SONiC and OpenDaylight is a compelling choice.
The question remains: are you ready to simplify and optimize your network?
