Big Switch Networks Releases Open-Source Controller Based on OpenFlow

Big Switch Networks (News - Alert) (News - Alert) has released an open-source controller which is based on the highly flexible OpenFlow, according to news reports.

CRN reports that Big Switch is giving out the source code for Floodlight, a software controller, on the company’s website. The commercial version of Floodlight will likely be released later in 2012.

"The first instance of OpenFlow open source code was developed by the Stanford Research Lab -- where several members of our company including myself worked -- in collaboration with other universities nationwide to demonstrate its feasibility," Guido Appenzeller, co-founder and CEO of Big Switch Networks, was quoted in a statement carried by TMCnet. "Now that SDN is becoming a commercial reality, it was natural for us to give back to the research community and develop a best-in-class open source platform for all. This will encourage a rich ecosystem and stimulate innovation using enterprise-grade tools."

"We're … actively working with partners who are building their own applications," Big Switch co-founder Kyle Forster (News - Alert) (News - Alert) added in a recent interview with CRN, “We can get to an incredibly high performance, high quality code base for a core controller."

OpenFlow controllers are flexible. They can send instructions to “any OpenFlow-enabled switch, regardless of who manufactured it, making it easy for organizations to build virtualized networking infrastructure that's easier to program and easier to customize,” CRN explains.

In addition, the Floodlight controller will be offered under Apache 2.0, as well as Hadoop, CRN said. Also, Big Switch is increasing developer partnerships, according to Forster, and is also hiring more engineers.

"We're absolutely convinced the industry's going to go this way, but we're in early days yet," Forster told CRN. "Nearly every product that's in this ecosystem is in Beta right now. I'd expect 2012 to be the year when an awful lot of these take over from Beta and become 1.0 programs, and after that I'd expect to see some formal VAR programs take shape."

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