[Santa Clara, California, March 6, 2014]: Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today unveiled Flow Engine, its industry-first carrier-grade Software-defined networking (SDN) traffic optimization engine for centralized route computation and resource allocation at the Open Networking Summit (ONS). Built into SDN controllers, Flow Engine serves as a key functional component of Huawei’s SDN solution under the company’s SoftCOM next generation network architecture. Flow Engine unleashes the full benefits of SDN centralized control by advanced optimization algorithms, representing a key milestone in the commercialization of SDN networks.
A key advantage of SDN networks is its centralized control of entire network resources by SDN controllers, as opposed to the distributed control in existing networks. This centralized control allows SDN controllers to optimize routing and resource allocation decisions globally. In contrast, the distributed routing mechanism in existing networks makes localized decisions with a myopic view, resulting in traffic congestion in some parts of the network while leaving resources idle in the rest. SDN networks promise increased network throughput, reduced congestion and improved quality of experience than existing networks. The key challenge to materialize such benefits is how to solve the optimization model in the scale of tens of billions decision variables and hundreds of millions of constraints for millions of traffic flows.
Huawei’s proprietary algorithm suite relies on an array of innovative techniques such as graph transformation, linear programming decomposition and matrix reduction to overcome the intractability of the problem’s scale and reduce the solution time to seconds, making Flow Engine the first traffic optimization engine suitable for carrier-grade networks. Flow Engine can automatically detect changes in traffic patterns or magnitude and adjust routing accordingly without human intervention, ensuring the optimal state of the SDN network at all times.
Flow Engine has lab trials at several network operators and has demonstrated its effectiveness by improving network throughput by as much as 60% and self-adjusting to reflect changing network dynamics. Its speed and optimality performance can well satisfy the scale of future carrier-grade SDN networks.
Huawei actively promotes the application of SDN/NFV on operator networks and helps customers build future-proof SDN networks, promoting the application of SDN technology in mobile backhaul networks, data centers, optical transport networks, backbone traffic scheduling, and metropolitan smart pipes.
Huawei’s SoftCOM strategy was introduced in 2012 against the backdrop of an upsurge in cloud technologies and the explosive growth of data consumption. Its SoftCOM solutions help carriers around the world navigate the challenges in improving efficiency, reducing costs and creating new business opportunities in the era of cloud, virtualization and ICT convergence.
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