SDN(Software Defined Network) On a Chip

As the title reads, SDN technology on the chip is getting cooked as of ONS 2014 ( Open Networking Summit ).

Wrapping up the speed notes on ONS 2014, near close diversion on "how , why and what SDN is and where it is going" is uncovered.

A good guess on how the problem is getting materialized, commodotized and vendor neutral etc..
are here , some start-up operations on moving the SDN story into the chip level.
Sounds like it make complete sense because, the general networking solutions based on chip based switch-ing solutions are the one sitting on close to the bare metal. If a common layer of abstraction (SDN open flow based controller ) at this level will open up all the avenues for the vendors to build their networking solutions.

Now, someone has to do the plumbing , some leads are here, below are the list of companies ambitious about introducing SDN Open Flow Controller in to a chip and sell to potential networking vendors.

http://www.broadcom.com/products/Switching/Software-Defined-Networking-Solutions/OF-DPA-Software
Broadcom's OpenFlow Data Plane Abstraction (OF-DPA) software enables development and deployment of scalable and high performance OpenFlow-based Software-Defined Networking applications on widely deployed Broadcom-based switches.

OF-DPA is compliant with the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) OpenFlow v1.3.1 specification. OF-DPA v1.0 defines and implements a hardware abstraction layer that maps the industry-leading StrataXGS switch architecture to the OpenFlow 1.3.1 switch and pipeline.

The OF-DPA specification and API are openly published and provided with turnkey reference implementation on ODM and OCP-compliant switches to enable a community and academia-based development ecosystem. Any OpenFlow v1.3.1 compliant controller and agent can be integrated with OF-DPA to enable popular SDN use cases such as Virtual Tenant Networks, Network Virtualization, Traffic Engineering and Service Chaining.

OF-DPA software is available in two packages:

● An OEM & ODM Development Package (ODP), which is a full source code package distributed under Broadcom SLA.
● A Community Development Package (CDP), which is an Open API library with Application Development Kit distributed on GitHub.

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/homepage.jsp?code=VORTIQA
Gain market advantage by leveraging Freescale's cutting-edge, commercial-grade VortiQa Software-Defined Networking Solutions. The two products available, VortiQa open network (ON) director software and VortiQa open network (ON) switch software, leverage open standards such as OpenFlow(TM) protocols to improve manageability of networks. By leveraging these optimized and highly portable software products on multicore platforms, customers can reduce OPEX and CAPEX. Develop your next innovative design with VortiQa SDN Solutions!
        
http://www.xpliant.com/
Xpliant was founded by former Marvell employees including Tsahi Daniel and Sachin Gandhi, Xpliant’s CTO and COO, respectively. Founded around 2011, the company has been participating in the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), and Daniel serves on the recently formed Chipmakers’ Advisory Board. Even though it’s in stealth mode, Xpliant hasn’t exactly been invisible.

http://www.barefootnetworks.com/
Barefoot, meanwhile, has its roots in Texas Instruments. Martin Izzard, who’s reportedly running Barefoot, spent more than 20 years at TI before leaving in mid-2013, according to his LinkedIn profile. Assuming Barefoot is this company, it ran an online contest to design its logo. At least they’re having fun at this.