In 2014, when AmLight decided to follow Internet2 and became an SDN network, the two central goals were: (1) to automate [intra|inter] domain circuit provisioning and (2) support network testbeds through network slicing. Initial challenges included migrating to a new protocol (OpenFlow) and changing the network engineer team's mindset to operate a software stack instead of network protocols. Since its beginning, it was clear that OpenFlow 1.0 was not the long-term solution, but just the first step of a long, exciting and challenging journey. In the past four years, the AmLight network engineering team has tried different SDN Southbound and Northbound protocols, different SDN and OpenFlow controllers and applications, evaluated SDN switches from multiple vendors, different troubleshooting methodologies, and developed a few SDN tools. Many of the lessons learned were shared in previous Internet2 Global Summit, Internet2 Technology Exchange, and GEANT/TNC conferences. As part of the lessons learned, it became clear that owning the control plane only was not enough to provide the functionalities, flexibility, and security that we needed to operate a production backbone. When the AmLight network was upgraded to a 100G network, the problem became more evident: if before there was a lack of trustworthy OpenFlow switch vendors, the problem became worse when the requirement of high-density of 100G ports was introduced. Only a few SDN switch vendors had high-grade support for OpenFlow 1.3+, less than a few had support for network slicing/virtualization, and none with enough buffers and multiple 100G ports. At that point, a user-programmable data plane became our focus, and the AmLight team started pursuing a mid-term solution with support for a user-programmable data plane, network virtualization, and high-density of 100G ports switch to be used in production.

Similarly, RNP (the Brazilian NREN), which is also participates in the AmLight consortium, has been involved in the adoption of SDN. This adoption started by using an incremental approach which provides reduced initial cost, through the use of custom made hardware and software in an overlay architecture. The main goal is to avoid data plane and control plane lock-ins. This nfrastructure is currently used by the FIBRE testbed, being used by dozens of researchers and students in Brazil. In the past years, RNP was focused in developing a low-cost whitebox switch solution based on Open vSwitch with DPDK hardware offload that could support network virtualization and high performance. As RNP and AmLight teams were prospecting network solutions, last year, they decided to engineer a solution together. The goal was to find a solution that could supports multiple SDN protocols (OpenFlow 1.3+, P4 Runtime API), multiple control planes, data plane programmability, high density of 100G ports, QoS and telemetry.