Agile Management of Software Based Networks
Steffen Gebert, Christian Schwartz, Thomas Zinner, Phuoc Tran‐Gia · 2015
The softwarization and cloudification of networks through mechanisms like Software Defined Networking and Network Functions Virtualisation promise a new degree of flexibility and agility. By moving logic from device firmware into application software and by applying mechanisms from software development, innovations can be introduced with lower effort. Concrete ways how to operate and orchestrate such systems, however, are not defined. The process of making changes to a controller software or a virtualized network function in a production network without the risk of network disruption is not covered by literature, yet. Complexity of systems bring the risk of unexpected side-effects and has so long been the show-stopper for administrators being relaxed while applying changes to networking devices. This paper suggests the adaption of the successful concept of continuous delivery into the software defined networking world. Mechanisms like Test-Driven Development and automatic acceptance tests demonstrate that the software engineering community already found ways to ensure that changes do not break a software’s functionality. Applied to network engineering, the adaption of continuous delivery can be seen as an enabler for risk-free and frequent changes in production infrastructure through push button deployments.