RouteFlow is an open source project to provide virtualized IP routing over OpenFlow capable hardware. It is composed of an OpenFlow controller application, an independent server, and a virtual network environment that reproduces the connectivity of a physical infrastructure and runs IP routing engines. The routing engines generate the Forwarding Information Base (FIB) in the Linux IP tables according to the routing protocols configured (for example, OSPF and BGP). RouteFlow combines the flexibility of open source Linux-based routing stacks (for example, Quagga and XORP) with the line-rate performance of OpenFlow devices.

RouteFlow allows a migration path to SDN via controller-centric hybrid IP networking, in addition to deployable innovation around IP routing and the different flavors of network virtualization. The main components of the RouteFlow solution are as follows:

• RouteFlow Client (RF-Client)
• RouteFlow Server
• RouteFlow Proxy (RF-Proxy)

RF-Proxy was formerly known as the RF-Controller (RF-C) application (refer to the following diagram). The main goal of RouteFlow is to develop an open source framework for virtual IP routing solutions over commodity hardware, which implements the OpenFlow API. RouteFlow aims at a commodity routing architecture that combines the line-rate performance of commercial hardware with the flexibility of open source routing stacks (remotely) running on general purpose computers. Migration path from legacy IP deployments to purely SDN/OpenFlow networks, open source framework to support the different flavors of network virtualization (for example, logical routers, router aggregation/multiplexing), IP Routing-as-a-Service models of networking and simplified intra and inter-domain routing interoperable with legacy networking devices are the key outcomes of design space of RouteFlow routing solutions: