Lumina Networks has implemented new features in its Flow Manager product that allow large network providers to begin evolving their BGP/MPLS networks toward software-defined networking (SDN).

"People want to be able to run any services over any type of underlying infrastructure," said Kevin Woods, VP of product management with Lumina Networks. “Our aim is to ease that problem by helping people not change the fundamental services they offer over networks but to be able to change out some of the infrastructure to things like white boxes.”

Flow Manager now supports the ability to define VLAN, MPLS, and segment routing intent paths over low-cost switches, such as white boxes. It can also assign packet transport services to the paths including E-Line, E-Tree, L2VPN or L3VPN. To achieve these capabilities, Flow Manager uses the Lumina SDN Controller along with the OpenFlow and border gateway protocol (BGP) plugins provided by the controller.

Lumina created its OpenDaylight-based SDN controller from assets that were divested by Brocade. Along with the SDN controller, Lumina also acquired an application, now named the Lumina Flow Manager, for traffic engineering of the network with advanced algorithms such as path-computation.

“Normally, service providers would have to provide services over specific hardware, but now you can have white boxes or BGP or MPLS routers underneath,” said Woods. “We can abstract the infrastructure from the service.”

"What makes Lumina different is our ability to operate a single control plane that software defines the existing routed network and enables white box vendors to integrate into the solution with next-generation switching protocols,” said Andrew Coward, CEO of Lumina Networks, in a statement.

Lumina Flow Manager release 6.1 is available as a free trial version, along with the Lumina SDN Controller.