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SDN Internet Router

2 posts · Dec 2015

What this trail covers

Spotify is evolving its network infrastructure by developing and deploying a Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Internet Router. This system aims to optimize internet routing by analyzing traffic patterns and selectively downloading BGP prefixes, allowing the use of more cost-effective and power-efficient switches instead of traditional, expensive routers. The project involves custom tooling for traffic analysis, BGP control, and vendor collaboration to program network hardware.

All Spotify trails
  1. SDN Internet Router – Part 1This post introduces the concept of the SDN Internet Router (SIR) project. It provides foundational knowledge on how the internet works, the role of BGP in routing, and different entities involved in connecting the world (transit providers, subscriber networks, content providers, CDNs, IXPs). It highlights Spotify's current strategy of using two transit providers and CDNs, and their recent direct connections to eyeball networks at IXPs. The post then introduces the technical and economic challenges of traditional internet routers (cost, ASIC requirements) and proposes the use of cheaper, faster switches by leveraging SDN principles to selectively download BGP prefixes, reducing the need to hold the entire routing table. This post sets the stage for subsequent posts detailing the implementation.
  2. SDN Internet Router – Part 2This post details the second part of Spotify's journey in building an SDN Internet Router. It elaborates on the initial challenges of using expensive, power-hungry traditional routers, the hypothesis that traffic analysis could enable the use of cheaper switches, and the stages of development. This includes proving the hypothesis with pmacct and SIR, designing a prototype using Selective Route Download (SRD) and OpenFlow, choosing hardware, and overcoming roadblocks like vendor BGP implementation issues and large prefix list handling. The post highlights the refactoring of SIR into a peering management and route optimization tool and the development of 'Super Smash BroGP' for stress testing.