Overview¶

OpenDaylight performs the following functions:

• Logically centralizes programmatic control of the physical and virtual devices in your network.
• Controls devices with standard, open protocols.
• Provides higher-level abstractions of its capabilities so experienced network engineers and developers can create new applications to customize network setup and administration.

Common use cases for SDN are as follows:

1. Centralized network monitoring, management, and orchestration
2. Proactive network management and traffic engineering
3. Chaining packets through the different VMs, which is known as service function chaining (SFC). SFC enables Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), which is a network architecture concept that virtualizes entire classes of network node functions into building blocks that may connect, or chain together, to create communication services.
4. Cloud - managing both the virtual overlay and the physical underlay beneath it.