Wakame Users Group #014

Safely testing changes in complex production networks

Making changes to a computer network running a production system is often a very scary thing to do. A simple task such as updating a firewall's firmware can have drastic consequences for the correct operation of production critical services. Even if test networks are set up, those are often much smaller in both size and complexity, still making it hard to accurately predict the complications of the change.

This is where OpenVNet comes in. Using OpenVNet, it becomes possible to create virtualized copies of highly complicated production networks using only very limited hardware. This effectively enables us to write automated test suites that deeply test and evaluate changes before they are pushed to production.

During this presentation we will give a live demonstration where we connect OpenVNet virtual networks to a physical Juniper SSG5 firewall. Assuming a production environment using the same firewall, we can now create a virtual copy for testing.

The current state of software Forwarding Path

Tomofumi Hayashi will present the recent trends concerning software Forwarding Path, such as DPDK, ODP and the applications on top of them.