Today at Dell Technologies World 2018, VMware Inc. announced what it is referring to, and hopes to be, the future of networking the Virtual Cloud Network. The Virtual Cloud Network takes VMware's NSX networking and security portfolio and expands it to encompass all ends of the software-defined network across a business' fabric.
Today at Dell Technologies World 2018, VMware Inc. announced what it is referring to, and hopes to be, the future of networking the Virtual Cloud Network. The Virtual Cloud Network takes VMware's NSX networking and security portfolio and expands it to encompass all ends of the software-defined network across a business' fabric.
The digital transformation that most companies are undergoing take the lines of where their data centers end and begin and blurs them heavily. With heavy cloud usage and decentralized data centers companies need to look at networking in a new manner. Networks need to an everything-to-everything connected architecture across private data centers, public clouds, telecommunications networks, branches, and endpoints, and to deliver multi-cloud networking, security, and management capabilities that provide a common operating model from the data center to the cloud to the branch.
VMware's Virtual Cloud Network is designed to address the above issues by enabling organizations to create a digital business fabric for connecting and securing applications, data, and users across the entire network in a hyper-distributed world. Expanding the VMware NSX networking and security portfolio to enable consistent, pervasive connectivity and security for apps and data created the Virtual Cloud Network. Other new capabilities created include:
- VMware NSX SD-WAN integration with VMware NSX Data Center and VMware NSX Cloud
- NSX Cloud support for applications running in Microsoft Azure
- NSX Data Center support for containerized cloud-native and bare metal applications
- Telco/NFV and networking performance optimizations for distributed workloads in NSX Data Center
Aside from providing a common operating environment for the new Virtual Cloud Network, the VMware NSX networking and security portfolio come with new and enhanced capabilities for data center, branch, cloud and telco environments all the while increasing support for traditional and modern application frameworks. Users will now be able to secure and manage their network in the private data center and as it stretches out across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and IBM Cloud.
Primary features include:
- Network Virtualization: VMware NSX Data Center is the industry’s most widely deployed network virtualization platform for the enterprise data center, adopted by more than 4,500 customers globally. NSX Data Center enables customers to design, build, and operate next-generation policy driven data centers that connect, secure, and automate traditional and modern applications, and help protect applications and data through security that is an intrinsic part of the infrastructure. With the latest update, NSX Data Center will include new container and bare metal capabilities that will provide consistent networking services to all applications and deployment models. Container integration rapid-releases will bring global security and more to new app platforms (e.g. PKS). VMware is also adding new accelerated performance optimizations for distributed workloads, which will be ideal for telco/network functions virtualization environments.
- Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN): VMware NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud is the market-leading SD-WAN solution that combines the economics and flexibility of the best real-time network overlay with the deployment speed, scale and automation of cloud-delivered services. With NSX SD-WAN, customers can deliver better cloud and application performance with full visibility, metrics, control, and automation of all device and user endpoints, with lower overall costs. NSX SD-WAN integrates with NSX Data Center and NSX Cloud, enabling customers to extend consistent networking and security policies from the data center to the branch to the cloud, while providing operational visibility and control end-to-end. NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud provides an extensible platform for enterprises and telcos to integrate both on-premises and cloud services under the same consistent business policy framework. NSX SD-WAN is available to customers in three ways. Customers can purchase NSX-SD-WAN as a service from VMware, or from more than 60 communication service providers worldwide. NSX SD-WAN is also available as an on-premises deployable solution. More than 2,000 customers have adopted NSX SD-WAN to date.
- Multi-Cloud Networking: VMware NSX Cloud provides consistent networking and security for applications running in both private VMware-based data centers and natively in public clouds. NSX Cloud addresses operational challenges inherent with using multiple public clouds, such as inconsistent policies and constructs across clouds; manual operations requiring policy for each cloud, region, and VPC: limited operational visibility into East-West traffic; and operations tools that are specific to each public cloud. With the latest release of NSX Cloud, VMware will add new native controls for customers that are using Microsoft Azure as part of their multi-cloud strategy.
- Hybrid Cloud Connectivity: VMware NSX Hybrid Connect enables customers to solve one of the biggest challenges with hybrid cloud– consistent networking. VMware NSX Hybrid Connect enables customers to create a consistent, highly performant, and more secure software fabric that interconnects data centers and clouds while maintaining the same governance and control. With NSX Hybrid Connect, customers can seamlessly migrate workloads from any VMware environment to a modern software-defined data center environment running anywhere—on-premises, in the public cloud, or operated by a VMware Cloud Provider partner. NSX Hybrid Connect is available direct from VMware and through system integrator and cloud provider partners.
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