TouSIX Project
For 30 years, the Internet industry has been experiencing several spectacular mutations which have resulted in a major transformation of exchanges, and therefore incurred changes in production, consumption and of course communication.
One of the anchors of the changes to come are the SDN1 architectures on which all telecommunication‘s stakeholders efforts converge. The telecommunications sector is often seen as a dualistic model inherited from traditional telephony that splits the sector into infra-structures and services. However the SDN architecture is part of a ternary model in which infra-structure itself is split into Infra (hardware level - "data mapping") and info-structure2 (Network Intelligence - "control plan"). This separation allows network management without physical access to the hardware components (routers, switches, ...) and independently of manufacturers.
For companies and telecom operators, SDN offers access to flexible networks, highly scalable, easily adaptable to changing needs and bring new value-added services.
For companies and telecom operators, SDN offers access to flexible networks, highly scalable, easily adaptable to changing needs and bring new value-added services. The flexibility resulting from these new features facilitates the entry of new players and of new services in the telecommunications sector.
TouIX, like other IXPs, primarily stands as an exchange between economic actors of the Internet. As such, and because of its business, TouIX is constantly facing changes in this area and endeavors to anticipate.
Since June 2014, TouIX has been studying the possibility and benefits of the deployment of SDN technology and has implemented this technology in its operational network in September 2015. TouIX is the first European IXPs to have deployed SDN technology.
In close, last February TouIX and Laas-CNRS launched the TouSIX project, an R&D assignment on the SDN technology applied to IXPs. In doing so, TouIX constituted the "TouSIX Group" including some of TouIX’s member companies (Alsatis, Fullsave, INTERMEDIASUD, Tetaneutral.net, Covage and Franceix) that finance and provide industrial contributions.
See the TouSIX Technical Overview
1SDN : Software Defined Network
2Info-structure : Info-structures are similar to infra-structure by its structuring effects on a system, but different by its mode of action : software rather than physical. For the highways of the industrial society, the main part of the added value was in the infra-structure. In the digital society, the added value and the creation of wealth of the Highways are in the info-structure.