Open Daylight and OpenFlow

 I came across an interesting page on EdX which talked about virtualizing network activities.  The comparison was drawn from when older computers such as IBM used to be sold, they came with an operating system produced by IBM.  Microsoft came along and produced an operating system which used a hardware abstraction layer so the same software could run on computers made by different manufacturers such as HP.  The same thing is happening with networking equipment.  It used to be that a switch used an ASIC to do certain tasks.  Like how server and storage was virtualized software defined networking defines how switches operate today.  Now with projects such as Open Daylight and OpenFlow which are open-source software.  Facebook was an early developer who made their own switches in hopes of getting the price to go down and they gave their infrastructure code to the community.  Cisco responded by coming up with App Centric Infrastructure which they hoped would stop the bleeding by requiring a certain newer type of Cisco switch.  It used to be that just by connecting to a certain port in a corporate office that one would have access to the company's internal network.  There were devices which were Wi-Fi transmitters which eavesdropped on the network.  It was once believed that IP addresses could stop these devices from collecting data.  However, given the structure of the network stack, giving devices a label was a problem because these devices could easily be spoofed.  Two other drivers for software defined networking are IOT and the cloud.  As shown during this corona virus pandemic we no longer have a security parameter around our devices.  There is a technology which is called software defined parameter which uses cryptography in order to ensure data integrity.