Software-Defined vs Hardware Reconstruction in Modern Data Centers: SDN, NFV, and SDDC Overview

Massive data and business growth are impacting data centers across industries at an unprecedented pace, prompting data center builders to reconsider IT architecture with new thinking and models. Two distinct camps have emerged: software-defined and hardware reconstruction. Internet companies like Google, Facebook, and domestic BAT have launched hardware reconstruction initiatives such as OCP (Open Compute Project initiated by Facebook) and the Scorpion project (initiated by BAT); the other camp, mainly traditional enterprises, seeks to integrate data centers through software-defined approaches.

Points of divergence:

Simply put, from the builder's perspective, the difference between internet enterprises represented by Google and Facebook and traditional enterprise vendors lies in their views on transparency and layering. The former opposes transparency and layering, emphasizing visibility of lower-level resources and sees no problem with siloed application architectures; the latter believes resources should be transparently allocated automatically; their views are almost opposite.

Common goal:

Hardware reconstruction and software-defined approaches, like internet enterprises and traditional enterprise markets, cover different scopes but intersect. Both share at least one common demand: solving the challenges of ever‑expanding scale and rapid business change while effectively controlling costs. Their solutions both start with pooling IT resources and then automating.

Software-Defined Section

Software-Defined Networking (SDN)

Implemented on a Fabric architecture to enable agile provisioning, control, and management of business and network services. Two major camps exist: Cisco (emphasizing its own network hardware) and VMware (emphasizing its own NSX software).

Cisco ACI (Application‑Centric Infrastructure)

Mainly separates the data plane and control plane, with northbound APIs allowing applications to program controller policies, and southbound interfaces enabling transparent centralized management of different physical switches. ACI architecture basic units:

1) Network policy model, which partitions network devices into container‑like structures and describes the organizational principle of device connections;

2) APIC (Application Policy Infrastructure Controller), providing a single management point and information repository for all configuration policies;

3) ACI architecture, the abstract concept of all physical and virtual network devices that constitute ACI.

Based on VMware's NSX

Mainly consists of NSX Manager, NSX Controller, NSX Edge, and NSX Switch.

Open Networking Foundation (ONF) standardized OpenFlow architecture

Additionally, there is the ONF‑standardized OpenFlow architecture, which runs software logic on a centralized component (e.g., a controller) and uses southbound protocols/APIs to program switches (hardware).

Open vSwitch (OVS)

OVS is an open‑source implementation of OpenFlow, led by Nicira Networks (acquired by VMware), running on virtual switches in virtualization platforms (e.g., KVM, Xen) and supported by OpenStack. On virtualization platforms, OVS provides L2 switching for dynamic endpoints and offers fine‑grained control of access policies, network isolation, traffic monitoring, etc.

Open Daylight

Open Daylight is an OpenFlow open‑source implementation led by Cisco and IBM, under the Linux Foundation.

Open ONOS (Open Network Operating System)

Huawei's SDN strategy; ONOS provides a global network view, managing and sharing network state across a cluster. Each ONOS instance discovers topology and state (switch ports, links, hosts) forming a global view, from which applications derive forwarding policies that are written back to the view and then pushed to OpenFlow controllers and corresponding switches when changes occur.

IETF SDN architecture

Based on the I2RS (Interface to the Routing System) supported SDN architecture. I2RS proposes adding plug‑ins to existing network‑layer protocols and inserting an SDN Orchestrator between the network and application layers to expose capabilities, rather than directly using OpenFlow, aiming to preserve and reuse existing routing protocols and IP networking technologies.

Second‑layer network interconnect technologies

Achieving large second‑layer connectivity is limited by broadcast constraints; VLANs isolate broadcasts but cannot break VLAN count limits, and virtual machine live migration cannot be satisfied by traditional layer‑2 networks. Second‑layer technologies address cross‑data‑center continuity requirements (via TRILL/L2Over L3).

Common second‑layer technologies include TRILL, FabricPath, SPB, VxLAN (VMware and Cisco), EVN (Huawei), OTV (Cisco), etc.

Network Function Virtualization (NFV)

Primarily targets carrier services, providing hardware virtualization via hypervisors, and on top of virtualized servers implements virtual network functions (vIMS, vEPC/vMSE, vFamily, etc.). Virtual switches connect VMs to physical interfaces, enabling automated management, higher resource utilization, and reliability. Organizations involved: ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) which launched the NFV workgroup, and OPNFV led by Huawei, Cisco, and Ericsson.

Virtualized Network (VN)

Refers to virtualizing network devices (switches, routers, load balancers) to enable communication and security isolation between VMs within server virtualization, e.g., Neutron, FusionNetwork, vNetwork (VMware). Virtualized networks can implement software‑defined networking.

Software‑Defined Storage (SDS)

Uses commercial low‑cost hardware to replace dedicated storage hardware, achieving software‑hardware decoupling. Storage software is deployed across hardware platforms, further separating control and data planes and unifying resource scheduling. Based on three layers: storage function virtualization (e.g., Storage Foundation, HP VSA), converged virtualization (e.g., Nutanix), and separation of storage data and control planes (e.g., EMC ViPR/ECS).

SFV (Storage Function Virtualization)

Corresponds to NFV for carriers, virtualizing backup, disaster recovery, NAS/SAN, MPPDB, Hadoop, etc., as functional units deployed on VMs or commodity hardware. Examples include EMC ViPR, which offers Amazon S3 and OpenStack Swift compatible REST APIs and HDFS access, supporting EMC Atmos, VNX, Isilon arrays, as well as third‑party arrays and commodity hardware.

Software‑Defined Data Center (SDDC)

Virtualizes and software‑enables all physical hardware resources in a data center, a concept introduced by VMware, comprising four planes: a management plane that independently oversees the entire data center, and three other planes—infra layer, control layer (hypervisor, SDN, SDS), and application layer.

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