Software Defined Networking with Dr. Nick Feamster

hi there my name is Nick feemster I'm an associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland my research background is in Communications networks and in particular I focus a lot on topics uh involving making Communications networks easier to manage troubleshoot operate and secure what we're going to do in this course is look at a new trend in networking called software defined networking what software defined networking does is essentially separate the um uh physical Network infrastructure the router switches and so forth from this from the control of the network that is the logic that dictates the behavior of the network what software defined networking allows uh Network operators to do is control the behavior of an entire network from a single software program so that's really exciting because actually it enables a bunch of new applications and it also allows potentially Network operators to troubleshoot manage uh and secure their Networks much more easily than they can today so what we're going to do in the course is first look at the history of software defined networking while it's a relatively new exciting topic as far as adoption is concerned it's it has roots uh that go back almost 30 years so we look at the history of software defined networking and what inspired its design after uh that we'll look at different elements of software defined networking we'll look at what's called the data plane so the data plane is is uh refers to what's going on in the actual Network routers and switches in terms of how TR trffic is forwarded a trend there is is increasing programmability and we'll look at what that enables we'll also look at the control plane the control plane is essentially the brains of the network and that's where the software program that controls the Network's Behavior actually runs so we'll look at different ways of actually designing the network control plane then we'll look at how to apply software defined networking Concepts to different types of applications in a variety of different networking domains ranging from data center networks to um Enterprise and campus networks to large trans networks to even home networks so uh in the course we'll have various lab assignments that get you familiar with these types of uh uh you know how to use software defined networking to solve different kinds of problems in these Arenas and by the end of the course you should be uh very well equipped to work on this topic either from a research angle or um uh from an operational side um uh for relating to topics that people in Industry will be uh very interested to have your skills so I look forward to seeing you this spring I I strongly encourage you to take the course and I'm looking forward to teaching all of you