SDN Control

Thomas Gunkel

This use case is an example of DataMiner’s SDN orchestration capabilities. DataMiner acts as SDN controller managing signal routing of MPEG2 transport streams in a non-blocking network infrastructure. Operators can make “crosspoints” with a simple to use XY-software panel. As the solution is based on MPEG2 multi-program transport streams (MPTS), DataMiner SDN controller not only configures the multicast-receiving address, but also sets the PID (program identifier) on each destination.

Software Defined Networking was realized via destination-based switching:

• Non-blocking (Cisco) IP fabric (i.e. no need for network capacity management)
  to establish a connection between source and destination
• DataMiner talks to the destination (via the specific DataMiner connector) and sets the multicast-IP for the receiver

• Multicast sources are statically configured

• Receiver sends IGMP join (IGMPV3, SSM) to get the multicast stream

• Additional feature for compressed streams: DataMiner sets MPEG2-TS PID on the destination

USE CASE DETAILS

Network topology representation of the spine-leaf Cisco network including real-time KPIs such as bandwidth utilization. The following edge devices have been added for this use case: Harmonic NMX, Cisco D9800, Ericsson RX8200.

SDN controller is based on DataMiner “generic matrix” driver * Input table: source IPs and source multicast-IPs * Output table: destination IPs and connected multicast-IPs * Both tables have additional columns to create “labels” for the operator

Easy-to-use & customizable XY software routing panel to make "crosspoints".

DataMiner default matrix view can be used as well, to connect sources with one or multiple destinations.

DataMiner Flow Tracking: simply pick a multicast address or label and DataMiner will highlight the path between the source and all connected destinations.

In this use case, DataMiner reads the current media flows from Cisco DCNM (data center network manager). It is also possible to retrieve the media flow information directly from the Cisco switches.

Customize your operational interface to route signals. In this case one service will be transmitted across two senders with dual outputs each and gets received by two receivers, with again two outputs. Operators in the QA team can simply click on the multiviewer buttons on the right to route two of the four signals to their desk for comparing the signal quality of both signals and for further testing.

Operator has selected port2 of RX4 to be routed to to the multiviewer. DataMiner adapts the visual dynamically.