SDN Based Private Cloud

Two disruptive technologies that the Web infrastructure builds on are multi-tenancy virtualized clusters and, more recently, Software Defined Networks (SDN). Multi-tenancy virtualized clusters enable scale-out designs with very flexible resource use and the best cost performance. SDN makes it possible to customize infrastructure and to eliminate unnecessary complexity and costs. SDN eliminates the need for appliances such as basic firewall, load balancer, and NAT by implementing their functionality in software on a server.

We are building an SDN-based Private Cloud with Stanford IT Organization to bring these two disruptive technologies to our campus and with them the scale, flexibility, and cost performance. With our private cloud, scientific computing groups will be able to share the physical infrastructure while simultaneously customizing computing and networking for their applications. Our private cloud will allow applications to connect seamlessly to emerging public clouds and access infinitely large pools of computing, storage, and networking resources on-demand. Users can do trial runs with a few virtual machines (VMs) on a few servers on campus and then do a production run with thousands of VMs on hundreds of servers with data sources spread around the globe.

A private cloud comprising scale-out clusters interconnected by SDN represents a major paradigm shift for a campus. This project will demonstrate the value of scale-out design, virtualization, and SDN to stakeholders on campus including scientific computing groups, campus IT operations group, networking researchers, and students. We will show how SDN virtualization and programmability can be used to reduce network complexity, provide new services, and develop network control applications that will replace appliances such as firewalls and load balancers. We will work with leading scientific computing groups including radar remote sensing and biological computing on campus to re-engineer their applications to take advantage of this infrastructure. Finally, we will provide network researchers the means to develop and experiment with their ideas on a large-scale campus infrastructure without interfering with production traffic.

For more info, please contact: Johan van Reijendam