ONF Releases Educational Network Tapping Application

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) released an open-source network tapping application built on OpenFlow and designed to serve as an educational resource for programmers.

The application was developed with Wiretap Labs, a Silicon Valley-based consultancy specializing in custom development for cloud, security and SDN solutions. of March 2014. It is based on OpenFlow 1.0 and was written to run on an OpenDaylight controller. SampleTap has been tested and will be demonstrated with OpenFlow Conformance-Certified NEC switches. It was based on OpenFlow 1.0 because the recently announced OpenDaylight Hydrogen release, which supports OpenFlow 1.3, was not available at the time of the app’s writing. It was also designed for easy portability to other network operating systems and support later versions of OpenFlow. The ONF noted that a number of its member companies, including Big Switch Networks, Cisco, Gigamon, HP, IBM, Ixia (Net Optics), NEC, and NetScout, offer or plan to offer commercial-grade network tapping products.

“In evaluating potential educational applications, we selected network tapping as it is broadly understood and easily deployable by network operators,” said Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation. “We see our app as an OpenFlow teaching tool that allows network operators to get experience with OpenFlow without changing how they actually do the switching and routing, since tapping doesn’t use OpenFlow for forwarding.”

"We hear tremendous interest from users who want to test OpenFlow in their networks and this app is the perfect way for them to get started," said Neela Jacques, executive director, OpenDaylight. "We are excited that ONF used OpenDaylight's controller for this and look forward to hearing how these open source technologies are being implemented in software-defined networks."

ONF will be demonstrating the SampleTap application at this week's Open Networking Summit in Santa Clara.

http://www.opennetworking.org