Allied Telesis x930 Series of SDN-Ready Switches Shine at Next-Generation Internet Exchange Testbed

SAN JOSE, CA – October 10th, 2017 - Allied Telesis, a leading provider of hardware and software products that allow customers to build secure, feature-rich and scalable data exchange solutions, is pleased to announce that its x930 series of advanced Layer 3 stackable Gigabit and OpenFlow-enabled switches has passed a series of independent tests, confirming its suitability as a control element for the next generation of Internet Exchanges (IX).

Since 2014, researchers at the University of Tokyo have been exploring ways to improve the performance of IXs with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technology. This project is called the Programmable Internet Exchange in Edo1 (PIX-IE) and its work with SDN promises to radically improve IX capabilities through more flexible route control, path exchange and data security.

“PIX-IE had successfully controlled traffic through OpenFlow using its own Umbrella controller. The next stage of testing was to demonstrate capabilities using the open source FAUCET SDN controller for IX implementation,” said Yuji Sekiya, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo’s Information Technology Center. “The Allied Telesis x930 series switch gained good scores and proved to be highly compatible with the FAUCET SDN controller.”

All PIX-IE testing was run by the Widely Integrated Distributed Environment (WIDE) Project, which was started in 1988 to research and develop Internet technologies to establish a production environment for next-generation IXs.

“By cooperating with various industries, WIDE helps PIX-IE to realize interoperable connection functionality between Internet core carriers and content service providers,” said Hiroshi Ezaki, a professor of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, and WIDE Project Representative. “Allied Telesis has proven the excellence of its equipment, software and staff.”

Dr. Marc Bruyere, a faculty member of the University of Tokyo’s Information Technology Center and a leading proponent of OpenFlow for IX fabric design said, “We put the x930 through a very intensive series of interoperability tests with FAUCET and Umbrella to determine its suitability to future network innovations, including IX deployments, and it performed extremely well.”

He added, “Allied Telesis has earned considerable praise from academia and the network industry as a whole for its OpenFlow implementation on xSeries switches. They’ve done some great engineering with these products and deserve to be recognized for their technology and their support for the academic and open source communities.”

This latest interoperability success follows earlier testing in 2017 with Berkeley Labs, where participating vendors ran a suite of tests using their own OpenFlow-enabled switches against the FAUCET controller. Allied Telesis excelled at this demonstration and outshone the other participants.

“Allied Telesis invests heavily in next-generation technologies and research partnerships that promise significant advancements in network capabilities and performance,” said Seiichiro Satoh, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing for Allied Telesis. “We are extremely pleased with the results of the testing and look forward to more successes like this in the future.”

Powered by AlliedWare Plus™ and featuring Autonomous Management Framework™ (AMF) and Autonomous Wave Control™ (AWC), x-Series switches enable organizations to build highly intelligent, resilient and secure next-generation networks, while benefitting from simplified control and management to deliver increased operational efficiency for a lower total cost of ownership.

1. ‘Edo’ is the former name of Tokyo.