Lumina adds new features to Flow Manager product
Lumina Networks recently announced it has implemented new features in its Flow Manager product, which enables large network providers to start evolving their BGP/MPLS routers toward software-defined networking (SDN), according to the company.
Lumina rolled into the SDN market last year through its acquisition of assets associated with the SDN controller product family from Brocade Communications Systems. Lumina’s Flow Manager serves as a controller-based application, which provides traffic engineering of the network with advanced algorithms, including path-computation for efficient traffic flows.
As part of the new features, Lumina said Flow Manager now supports the ability to define VLAN, MPLS and segment routing intent paths over low-cost switches. Additionally, Flow Manager can assign packet transport services to the paths, including E-Line, E-Tree, L2VPN or L3VPN. To achieve these capabilities, Flow Manager runs using the Lumina SDN Controller, powered by OpenDaylight, in addition to OpenFlow and BGP plugins provided by the controller, according to the company.
“In every SDN deployment, bringing the existing network under an automation framework is the number one priority,” said Lumina CEO Andrew Coward in a statement. “What makes Lumina different, is our ability to operate a single control plane that software defines the existing routed network and enables white-box vendors to integrate into the solution with next-generation switching protocols. This allows our provider customers to offer their existing services seamlessly over both, while at the same time expanding their offers to more advanced services, thus bridging the gap between the old and new.”
Lumina also noted implementation includes a centralized path policy manager function, providing many of the traffic management features found in traditional BGP/MPLS networks. Other features include fine-grained traffic classification at the service ingress node, traffic replication and point to multi-point (P2MP) services, including “anycast” destinations and L2-L4 packet field manipulation at the service egress node.
The company added that Lumina has the tools and background for deep integration with routers deployed from Cisco, Juniper and other tier-1 vendors. Lumina said its NetDev Services will deploy the company’s engineering team to develop the specific integrations needed to move from proof-of-concept to production deployment quickly. Lumina Flow Manager release 6.1 with the SDN controller is currently available as a free trial version.
