Next week Cisco holds its annual user conference, Cisco Live, in San Diego. Cisco Live is a great show for customers to get educated on the latest and greatest Cisco technology available to them and how it can fit into their environment. Another benefit of Cisco Live is that customers can find technology partners that have developed solutions that work in conjunction with Cisco solutions.One vendor that jumped the gun and announced a solution early is the application delivery controller start up Avi Networks. I actually wrote about Avi earlier this year in this blog. I'm guessing that Avi Networks wanted to get ahead of the flurry of press releases that I'm expecting next week, and I'm glad they did as this seems like a compelling solution.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HP this week signed a definitive agreement to acquire ConteXtream, a provider of OpenDaylight-based SDNs for service providers.Terms of the deal were not disclosed.ConteXtream develops an SDN controller for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), software-based services that replace hardware-dependent Layer 4-7 functions, like load balancing and firewalls. ConteXtream’s products enable carriers to use existing standard server hardware to virtualize functions and services for subscribers, and to chain services across servers and subscribers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) starts back up in June, the data collected and distributed worldwide for research will surpass the 200 petabytes exchanged among LHC sites the last time the collider was operational. Network challenges at this scale are different from what enterprises typically confront, but Harvey Newman, Professor of Physics at Caltech, who has been a leader in global scale networking and computing for the high energy physics community for the last 30 years, and Julian Bunn, Principal Computational Scientist at Caltech, hope to introduce a technology to this rarified environment that enterprises are also now contemplating: Software Defined Networking (SDN). Network World Editor in Chief John Dix recently sat down with Newman and Bunn to get a glimpse inside the demanding world of research networks and the promise of SDN.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A branch in the US Department of Energy want to take software-defined network technology and combine it with a high-speed underlying optical system that will be capable of supporting large scientific applications.+More on Network World: What network technology is going to shake up your WAN?+Specifically the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research in the Office of Science at the U.S. DOE said that networks are becoming too complicated to manage and control, especially as they provide critical support for sophisticated distributed extreme-scale science activities and Big Data-intensive scientific collaborations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Alcatel-Lucent this week extended its carrier SDN product line with an automation and network control system designed to accelerate service provisioning from multivendor IP and optical infrastructure.The company’s Network Services Platform combines Alcatel-Lucent’s SDN-based software with its 5260 service-aware management system, Service Router operating system and the 1830 Photonic Service Switch GMPLS routing engine algorithms from Bell Labs. It also has a REST API interface to the Nuage Networks Virtual Services Platform SDN controller for data center networks so the IP/MPLS/optical network can be quickly provisioned based on the needs of data center interconnection and virtual machine mobility.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When Linux first became a serious challenger for enterprise-class infrastructure, traditional IT vendors had to contend and to rationalize just what exactly this open source thing was. The initial response from many vendors was to attempt to stop it, but it only grew. And as open source grew, many mostly younger businesses learned to leverage it for great commercial success; however, the titans of the previous era have had challenges adapting their business models to embrace open source successfully.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. Many vendors are racing to compete in the burgeoning software-defined WAN space. Each competitor has its own strategy of how to implement the network overlay that makes the network connections, provides virtualized services and steers applications. It all comes down to what the SD-WAN vendor wants to help its customers achieve.VeloCloud has an entry in this race, and the company has two goals: to simplify the way companies set up their branches within their wide area network, and to improve the performance of the WAN. There are several specific problem areas VeloCloud is setting out to address.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nuage Networks this week released an application designed to better integrate physical and virtual networks.The company’s Virtualized Services Assurance Platform (VSAP) correlates the operation of virtual overlays and physical underlays in software defined networks on behalf of applications and workloads. Nuage says it employs standard protocols to achieve this instead of proprietary approaches offered by its SDN competitors that require specific hardware.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Alcatel-Lucent SDN company puts pedal to bare metal+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security orchestration methods and of course SDN is driving the need for programmable interfaces in security products. The Cisco ASA Firewall added a REST API back in December with the 9.3(2) code release. I've asked Mason Harris, from Cisco, to write up a quick how-to primer on the ASA API capabilities. Thank you Mason for the great information.Author: Mason Harris CCIE #5916Solutions Architect, Global EnterpriseOver the years I’ve seen many different custom methods used to manage ASA firewalls. Most of them involve some version of command line interface (CLI) scripting since nearly all ASA features and functions are available in this manner. Perl and Expect scripts are the common scripting languages in use today for managing ASAs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The network at CoxHealth, a healthcare organization in Springfield, Missouri, with five hospitals, 83 clinics and 10,000 employees, was running out of gas just as new demands were ratcheting up, so Senior Manager for IT Dan Brewer started to rethink everything. Here’s the story he shared with Network World Editor in Chief John Dix.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Big Switch Networks rolled out new versions of its SDN-based cloud fabric and monitoring applications which feature tighter integration with VMware, among other enhancements.Big Cloud Fabric is a leaf/spine Clos fabric providing physical and virtual workload connectivity in data centers. Version 2.6 provides fabric automation and analytics for VMware vSphere environments.+ MORE ON NETWORK WORLD:SDN start-up Big Switch bullish on new course +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While Cisco’s SDN customers are trending up, the TCO benefits of its solution are trending down. At its recent Cisco Partner Summit, Insieme SVP Soni Jiandani held up a slide that claimed over 2,655 customers for the Nexus 9000 switch and over 585 customers for the Application Centric Infrastructure APIC controller.The slide was tweeted by CEO-in-waiting Chuck Robbins:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Little did we know that our interview with John Chambers at Cisco’s Texas Data Center Day in April might be our last with him as the company’s CEO. As we learned this week, he’ll hand the reins to Chuck Robbins in July, though will remain the company’s chairman and become its executive chairman as well. He’ll also hand Robbins the challenge of making Cisco the No.1 IT company by forging ahead with its data center, cloud and Internet of Everything initiatives. Chambers discussed those topics and more with IDG Enterprise VP and Chief Content Officer John Gallant.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IT organizations have been virtualizing compute servers for years, and now it’s time for network admins to have their turn at virtualization.A panel at Interop in Las Vegas this week that included network executives from Dell, HP and VMware said that software-defined networking (SDN) will usher in big changes in network operations. + MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Hottest products from Interop 2015 | Google’s cloud chief says the industry is on the verge of a major transformation +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
LAS VEGAS -- Extreme Networks this week said it will support a community-developed policy framework in its SDN controller as well as tighter integration with Microsoft’s unified communications platform.Extreme is adopting the OpenDaylight Project’s group-based policy model in its OneController SDN software. Cisco contributed the group-based policy framework to OpenDaylight open source effort when it rolled it out as part of its Application Centric Infrastructure programmable fabric in November, 2013.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco is looking to provide threat protection for data centers and clouds by integrating acquired security technology with its programmable, policy-based networking portfolio.Cisco this week announced that it is combining the FirePOWER threat protection services software obtained from the 2013 acquisition of Sourcefire with its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) automated policy fabric. ACI is Cisco’s response to software-defined networking.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
One of the coolest demonstrations at the RSA Conference in San Francisco was of a network functions virtualization (NFV)-based firewall and Deep Content Inspection engine embedded into the software-defined networking (SDN) control plane of a heavily laden network. The firewall/DCI engine filtered content and blocked SQL injection attacks in real time, without slowing down the simulated network. The OpenStack-based testbed was created and run by Spirent, a Southern California firm well known for its network testing platform. The security firm with the firewall and DCI engine was Wedge Networks, a Canadian company that's focused on the cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This week’s Interop agenda includes more than 125 sessions covering topics as wide ranging as a status update on the latest trends in software defined networking (SDN) to tips for new application development and delivery methods, infrastructure management, and the pervasive issues of security and mobile workers.Held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Introp is expected to draw 12,000 attendees and 300 exhibitors, which is 125 more than last year.+ MORE AT NETOWRK WORLD: Interop 2015: The essential information | Hot products at Interop 2015 +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HP this week strengthened its campus networking portfolio with modules for a switch chassis it announced almost a year ago, and an SDN-based management application.The additions are intended to improve an enterprise’s ability to support mobility, security, application performance and network monitoring in the campus. They are consistent with the industry trend in campus networking to better integrate wired and wireless infrastructure and applications.+ MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Aruba Networks is different from HP’s failed wireless acquisitions +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The annual Interop networking show in Vegas this week is sure to be busy between all the SDN, cloud, mobility, security and other talks, a show floor packed with exhibitors from ABC Trading Solutions to Zippy Technology (truly), parties and other Vegas activities. We'll have a handful of editors at the show, but could use your help in capturing the coolest and funniest scenes from the show.We invite you to tag any photos you post to Instagram with #nww15 and we'll round up the best as part of our show coverage. We challenge you to find a funny SDN scene!(If you don't already follow us on Instagram, here you go.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here