Alibaba’s Perspective on Software‑Defined Networking (SDN) and Its Deployment in Data Centers

Software‑Defined Data Center (SDDC) solutions aim to enable customers to deploy and manage business workloads more flexibly and cost‑effectively, and Software‑Defined Networking (SDN) is a key component of SDDC. By using the OpenFlow protocol, SDN separates the control plane from the data plane, allowing flexible traffic control and providing a solid platform for network and application innovation.

Alibaba, the leading Chinese internet giant, has long pursued cutting‑edge technologies, including SDN. At the recent DCD Shanghai conference held at the Kerry Hotel, Datacenter Dynamics interviewed Alibaba’s network planning expert Cao Jie to discuss the company’s views and experiments with SDN.

Cao Jie notes that SDN can be interpreted in many ways, but fundamentally it represents a set of concepts that guide the evolution of networks toward application‑driven designs rather than hardware‑centric, vendor‑driven roadmaps.

He emphasizes that Alibaba’s most important step is to clarify its own requirements and then use SDN to meet them, because the existing network functions cannot keep pace with the rapid growth of business.

The most obvious benefit of SDN, according to Cao, is improved operational efficiency and flexibility. Traditional switch operating systems, developed by vendors such as Huawei and Cisco, are expensive and proprietary, whereas SDN allows Alibaba to purchase inexpensive white‑box switches from ODMs and build a high‑performance network using open‑source operating systems.

SDN also enables rapid response to change and supports automated operations. By separating forwarding and control functions, network control is taken out of vendor‑specific boxes and placed under Alibaba’s own engineers, allowing quick implementation of changes without waiting for vendor development cycles. This also makes it possible for a small team to manage thousands of switches, similar to modern server farms.

Cao points out that SDN is best deployed in newly built data centers, where a clean‑slate architecture can avoid the complexities of integrating with legacy hardware and software.

Regarding the impact on large internet companies, Cao believes SDN will not directly disrupt business models but will enable much larger data‑center scales, changing rack layouts, floor space requirements, and overall facility design.

Alibaba is committed to leading the wave of SDN deployment

Despite its many advantages, SDN still faces challenges such as the willingness to adopt it, ensuring reliability and stability, and maintaining scalability. Alibaba aims to work with industry experts to turn the SDN vision into concrete practice.

Cao Jie, network planning expert of Alibaba’s Technical Assurance Department, speaking at DCD 2015 Shanghai

Alibaba began researching SDN more than two years ago, engaging with chip and switch manufacturers and developing its own SDN controller. The company has built extensive test environments and continuously refines vendor requirements and new functionalities.

Alibaba has already deployed a first‑generation SDN‑ready network and plans to roll it out to cloud computing and e‑commerce production environments. Once fully implemented, a unified SDN architecture will be used across all Alibaba data centers.

Cao is optimistic about SDN’s future, believing that within one to two years similar technologies will become mainstream in the cloud computing sector because they can effectively support business growth and deliver substantial benefits.

Alibaba’s broader “software‑defined” vision includes a centralized control platform that can manage all infrastructure resources—power, cooling, networking—through big‑data analysis and software‑defined scheduling, enabling real‑time, precise decisions for data‑center operations.