Introduction

This document describes the configuration and management of the HPE VAN SDN Controller in standalone and team modes.

About the HPE VAN SDN Controller

The HPE VAN SDN Controller provides a unified control point in an OpenFlow-enabled network, simplifying management, provisioning, and orchestration and enabling delivery of a new generation of application-based network services.

In the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Software Defined Networking (SDN) architecture, the control and data planes of the network are decoupled from each other, centralizing network intelligence and abstracting the underlying network infrastructure from applications. Controller software directly provisions physical and virtual switches under its control via the industry-standard OpenFlow protocol. Network ports, links, and topologies are all directly visible, enabling centralized policy administration and more effective path selection based on a dynamic, global view of the network. This dramatically simplifies the orchestration of multi-tenant environments and the enforcement of network policy for both mobile clients and servers.

The HPE VAN SDN Controller is designed to operate in a variety of computing environments, including campus, data center, service provider, private cloud, and public cloud. The HPE VAN SDN Controller features:

  • An enterprise-class platform for the delivery of a broad range of network innovations

  • An extensible, scalable, and resilient controller architecture

  • Compliance with OpenFlow 1.0 and 1.3 protocols

  • Support for Hewlett Packard Enterprise and H3C OpenFlow-enabled switches

  • Secure authentication using a local or remote Keystone server

  • Controller teaming for distributed platform High Availability (HA) and scalability

  • Embedded applications that provide common network services

  • Open APIs to enable third-party SDN application developers to deliver innovative solutions to dynamically link business requirements to network infrastructure using either custom Java programs or general-purpose RESTful control interfaces, including functions to extend the controller REST API and UI.

  • Integration with HPE Intelligent Management Center (IMC). HPE IMC provides full controller application life cycle management and monitoring, enhanced reporting and SDN network visualization.