NetIDE develops single IDE framework to support SDN software development lifecycle

17 March 2017

The NetIDE European research project concluded last December 2016 with a successful final demonstration, hosted at IMDEA Networks, of the technology developed during its three years of execution hosted. A panel of experts and European Commission representatives witnessed the demonstration of the main project achievements focused on delivering a single Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to support the whole development lifecycle of network controller programs in a vendor-independent fashion.

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The NetIDE framework represents a single point of entry to SDN software development and offers a unified development environment following the ‘write once, execute anywhere’ paradigm. In the final release that marks the end of this collaborative endeavor, NetIDE enables a fast porting and composition of Ryu, Floodlight and ONOS applications on top of an SDN controller (OpenDaylight, Ryu or ONOS), thus facilitating the migration of already developed network services on top of an evolving software-defined infrastructure.

In more detail, the final release comes as a software bundle including three key elements. Firstly, the «NetIDE Development Environment», an Eclipse-based integrated environment for developers. Second, the «NetIDE Network Engine», a controller-agnostic environment where SDN applications for different controllers can be deployed on top of the same infrastructure. Thirdly, a set of «NetIDE Tools» enabling developers to systematically test, profile, and tune their network applications (logger, memory management system, debugger, a wireshark dissector, profiler and a verificator).

In June 2015, NetIDE became an OpenDaylight project, working together with the biggest open-source community to advance SDN and NFV in conjunction with IT industry leaders such as Dell, IBM, HP, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, RedHat, Cisco, Brocade and Ericsson. NetIDE has been very active there and has contributed further to other open-source communities like Eclipse, Englewood, Floodlight and ONOS.

NetIDE was industry-driven thanks to the involvement of key ICT European players and market leaders (Telefonica Research and Development – TID, Intel, Thales and Fujitsu) and the contribution by Telcaria, a high-tech Spanish SME. It also involved several well-known research and academic partners (University of Paderborn, IMDEA Networks, Fraunhofer IPT and CREATE-NET).