Maturing of OpenFlow and Software-defined Networking through deployments

Software-defined networking (SDN) has emerged as a new paradigm of networking that enables evolvable and programmable networks allowing network operators, owners, vendors, and even third parties to innovate and create new capabilities at a faster pace. The SDN paradigm shows potential for all domains of use including the data center, cellular, service provider, enterprise, and home. In this paper we present SDN deployments that we did on our campus and other deployments that we led with partners over four years in four phases. Our deployments include the first ever SDN prototype in a lab to a (small) global deployment. The deployments combined with demonstrations of new networking capabilities enabled by SDN played an important role in maturing of SDN and its ecosystem so far. We share our experiences and lessons learned that have to do with demonstration of SDN potential; influence on successive OpenFlow specifications; evolution of SDN architecture; performance of SDN and various components; and growing the ecosystem.