Great News for Networkers: Embrane’s 2014 Is Off to a Great Start!
The hype surrounding SDN (Software-Defined Networking) and now NFV (Network Function Virtualization) is widely known. As one of the first to enter the market of innovative network solutions, I have seen new players enter (and exit) while others have re-positioned themselves to try to get a share of the pie. I’m proud to say that we have remained committed to the vision we laid out at the beginning and are delivering real products to real customers that execute on that vision.
While championing the advantages and benefits that SDN enables, in many ways we steered clear of the hype around Layer 2 solutions created to solve problems that customers don’t have. We listened to customers that craved solutions that are disruptive, but not destructive. We focused on delivering evolutionary solutions that provided new tools to the right people rather than forcing unnecessary organization and infrastructure changes; and our customers rewarded us with their investments.
Today, we are announcing our support for OpFlex, a new open, standards-based protocol that provides a unique mechanism to enable a network controller such as Cisco’s Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) to transfer abstract policies to a set of “smart” devices capable of directly rendering network policies on the device itself. Embrane will be implementing the OpFlex interfaces as part of our own Embrane heleos platform and all of the associated network services. By combining Embrane’s Elastic Service Manager and its virtual appliance lifecycle management capabilities with Cisco’s APIC and OpFlex, customers will benefit from full automation of both the lifecycle and policy management of the network infrastructure.
We are also extremely excited to partner with Cisco to provide not only OpFlex support for Embrane’s virtual network services, but also full lifecycle management for two of their market-leading security solutions, the Cisco Virtual Adaptive Security Appliance (ASAv) and Sourcefire virtual appliances.
The integration of Embrane and Cisco technologies enables customers to automate the process of instantiating, managing and removing network service virtual appliances. For example, they will be able to automate the provisioning and lifecycle management of Sourcefire virtual appliances and benefit from an open protocol to dynamically define and enforce the necessary security policies. This is clearly something that is not possible with any other combination of products that currently exist in the market.
Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure is incredibly aligned with our vision of application-centric network services. And this is not by coincidence, but because we both have built a solution that addresses the problems of a common customer base: the network teams!
Customers can purchase and implement the integrated Embrane-Cisco ASAv (and/or Sourcefire virtual appliance) solution today on the Cisco Nexus 9000 platform and immediately enjoy the benefits of a full lifecycle management solution for their virtual appliances. They will also be laying the strongest foundation for building a complete Application-Centric Infrastructure that can adapt as their business evolves.
As a networker at heart, I’m truly excited for the future of Embrane and the networking industry. Networking is cool again, and it’s for networkers to enjoy!
