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Unified Cloud Networking Changes the Game

Today we announced our Unified Cloud Networking vision, the industry’s first Unified Cloud Fabric solution and our partnership with NVIDIA. This truly changes the game for cloud network operators.

Last week I made the case that cloud networking needs a new vision in order to meet two strategic goals shared by cloud operators:

  1. Transform cloud networks to become as agile, highly available and simple to operate as the hyperscale public clouds.
  2. Move rapidly toward a new, more highly distributed networking and zero-trust security architecture to address increasing cybersecurity risks.

Just as importantly, we need new solutions to overcome the obstacles that prevent operators from achieving those goals, i.e. fragmented networks and incomplete solutions for security, automation and visibility.

Today, I outline how we have created the vision and solutions to overcome those obstacles and meet those goals. In a companion blog, Alessandro Barbieri dives deeper into the challenges we are addressing and how we are turning the vision into reality.

Introducing the Unified Cloud Networking Vision

Unified Cloud Networking solutions build on the Unified Cloud Fabric (the next generation of our proven Adaptive Cloud Fabric) to unify networks across multiple dimensions – switches and servers, overlay and underlay Continue reading

Pluribus Unified Cloud Networking: What, Why, How

Today, in partnership with NVIDIA, Pluribus launched the Unified Cloud Networking architecture aiming to transform the way CSPs, telcos and enterprises build and operate cloud networks with radical operational simplification, distributed security services integrated into the network, and significantly lower total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to existing solutions.

In this blog I discuss the networking and security challenges cloud operators are facing, and then describe how the Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric™ addresses these challenges with a holistic approach to cloud networking including both the switching fabric and the compute virtualization fabric. I then explain how the Pluribus Netvisor® ONE network operating system (OS) integrates with the NVIDIA® Bluefield® data processing unit (DPU) hardware architecture to deliver a Unified Cloud Fabric across any workload environment (including ESXi, Hyper-V, Xen, KVM, bare metal, and Kubernetes), provide a zero-trust administration model between compute and network, and radically simplify the networking stack running on the server OS with better overall performance and lower TCO. Finally, I review the initial set of use cases Pluribus is delivering with the Early Field Trial (EFT) program starting next month.

The State of Cloud Networking: A Tale of Many Fabrics

Outside the largest public cloud providers, with Continue reading

Cloud Networking Needs a New Vision

While hyperscale public clouds grab attention, the majority of workloads and cloud infrastructure will continue to remain elsewhere for the foreseeable future. Enterprise private clouds are not only NOT disappearing but growing, spanning on-premises data centers, colocation sites and increasingly distributed edge sites. Tier 2 cloud service providers cater to local markets and provide services more closely tailored to their customers’ needs. Telecom service providers operate highly distributed clouds to support their network services.

These cloud operators all have two similar goals for their network infrastructure, goals that are so critical to remaining competitive that we can even call them mandates:

  1. Transform cloud networks to become as agile, highly available and simple to operate as the hyperscale public clouds.
  2. Move rapidly toward a new, more highly distributed networking and zero-trust security architecture to address increasing cybersecurity risks.

Unfortunately, achieving these goals is far from simple. Current networking solutions are not only insufficient, they are in many ways the biggest problem. The below datapoint, from The State of Data Center Networking: 2021 Annual Report, illustrates just that. The top two challenges in achieving a highly agile and available active-active or active-hot standby data center architectures are both related to network Continue reading

Pluribus named a Futuriom 40 Cloud Infrastructure and Communications Company

Scott Raynovich and the team at Futuriom have compiled their list of private companies that are making waves in cloud infrastructure. Futuriom knows this landscape and the customer trends thoroughly and recognizes companies that are innovating to stay ahead of the market, and delivering what customers need to achieve an agile cloud operating model across all of their distributed cloud locations.

2022 Futuriom 40 - Pluribus Networks is a Cloud Market LeaderPluribus is humbled and grateful to be named to the 2022 Futuriom 40, joining a group of companies that are all doing remarkable things in the cloud. As Scott points out in the report and in this Forbes article, the market for cloud technology innovation will remain strong, as “…in many cases, traditional enterprise networking architectures aren’t useful for connecting to the cloud applications and platforms.” Pluribus is dedicated to simplifying cloud networking as organizations grapple with the new realities of the distributed cloud.

Of the top trends in the report, one of them is focused on networking across distributed clouds. Futuriom describes it as follows:

Distributed Cloud Infrastructure: Networking and connectivity platforms need to be engineered to connect cloud resources ranging from the edge to the public cloud. This has computer, networking, and storage elements, Continue reading

Pluribus Netvisor ONE R7 Feature Spotlight: Kubernetes-aware Fabric with the KubeTracker™ Fabric Service

Today, Pluribus released Netvisor 7, which marks another major step forward in our mission to radically simplify deployment and operations for distributed cloud networking. One of the most innovative features of this release is a new suite of monitoring and visibility tools, including FlowTracker and KubeTracker™ fabric services.

In prior releases, Netvisor ONE OS and the Adaptive Cloud Fabric software could capture flow telemetry for TCP flows only. With the introduction of FlowTracker in R7, Pluribus now provides telemetry on every flow traversing the fabric, including TCP, UDP, ICMP and even infrastructure services flows like DCHP, DNS and more.

Amazingly, this comprehensive flow telemetry is achieved without the need for an expensive external TAP and TAP aggregation overlay infrastructure. The cost of procuring and deploying TAPS to capture packet flows for analysis can be daunting and often results in cost/benefit tradeoffs where TAPS are only installed at certain points in the network. With FlowTracker, that expense and those tradeoffs are eliminated, every flow in the fabric is captured, and flow metadata is exported to tools like our UNUM Insight Analytics platform.

The KubeTracker fabric service is a powerful new capability delivered by the Adaptive Cloud Fabric specifically for network operators Continue reading

Pluribus Networks 2021 Year In Review

Dear Pluribus customers, partners and employees:

At this same time last year, I posted about how impressed I was with the progress Pluribus Networks had made in spite of 2020 being a year unlike any we’d ever experienced. As we turn the page on 2021, while we still face challenges brought on by COVID-19, there is a sense that enterprises and economies are adapting to this new reality and finding their footing. I’m pleased to say that, despite all the constraints that make up this “new normal”, Pluribus excelled in 2021.

From a technical standpoint alone, Pluribus had a banner year. We released version 6.1 of our Linux Netvisor® ONE network operating system (OS) and elevated our Adaptive Cloud Fabric to new heights to enable customers to build bigger, faster cloud networking fabrics with more services and even simpler operations. We also released version 6.2 of our UNUM Management Platform, which includes our powerful Fabric Manager GUI-based portal and Insight Analytics telemetry solution. The platform empowers NetOps teams with tools to provision services at cloud speed and resolve network performance issues in record time.

Additionally, we extended the Pluribus switch portfolio with support for multiple new Dell Continue reading

Is SONiC Right for Your Data Center and Private Cloud Network?

Many data center operators are interested in bringing the benefits of hyperscaler technologies to on-prem data centers. One of these technologies is SONiC, an open source network operating system that is being advanced under the auspices of the Open Compute Project (OCP). There are a number of questions that enterprises, communication service providers and tier 2 cloud service providers need to ask themselves to understand if SONiC is a good choice for their on-prem data center and private cloud networks.

What is SONiC?

SONiC, which stands for “Software for Open Networking in the Cloud,” is a network operating system originally designed by Microsoft for their data center networks. Microsoft was frustrated with the overly complex operating systems provided by vendors like Cisco, Juniper and Arista that included many features that Microsoft simply did not need for their Azure cloud network. Thus, SONiC was built by Microsoft in a completely modular way based on running networking functions in containers so components could be added or removed as a mechanism to build a lean, optimized OS that only contained the essential features to run the Microsoft Azure cloud network. They also developed the Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) with a goal of enabling Continue reading

The Circular Data Center: Deploy a Cloud Operating Model While Lowering Cost and Climate Impacts

ITRenew has announced that Pluribus Netvisor ONE OS and the Adaptive Cloud Fabric controllerless SDN software are now available as part of Sesame by ITRenew rack-scale cloud solutions. Pluribus is very pleased to take part in this new circular approach to building data centers; one where we can deliver a cloud operating model with on-prem performance, while also helping our customers achieve their sustainability goals.

The timing of this partnership is apropos given the global attention to COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference and ongoing efforts worldwide to scale back emissions. While all industries have a responsibility on this front, the data center industry has specific, well-documented sustainability challenges that are only just starting to be properly addressed.

Most efforts to build the “green data center” have largely focused on increasing energy efficiency and using renewable energy sources, even though power used during the operational phase is only part of the problem. The bigger environmental culprit is that the industry continues to manufacture and deploy brand-new IT infrastructure equipment at a rapid pace.

In its report, “The Financial & Sustainability Case for Circularity,” ITRenew used a lifecycle model, assuming a typical 3-year operational lifetime for the equipment, Continue reading

VXLAN: Virtualizing Data Center Networks for the Cloud Era

Since VXLAN was introduced in 2014 it has become an important component of modern data center network fabrics. This blog reviews what VXLAN is, why it was developed, how it is being used in data centers, and advantages over other virtualization technologies. In an upcoming blog, we will look at some innovative VXLAN applications outside the data center.

What is VXLAN?

Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN) is an Internet standard protocol that provides a means of encapsulating Ethernet (Layer 2) frames over an IP (Layer 3) network, a concept often referred to as “tunneling.” This allows devices and applications to communicate across a large physical network as if they were located on the same Ethernet Layer 2 network.

Tunneling approaches such as VXLAN provide an important tool to virtualize the physical network, often called the “underlay,” and allow for connectivity to be defined and managed as a set of virtual connections, called the “overlay.” These virtual connections can be created, modified and removed as needed without any change to the physical underlay network. (Mike Capuano’s blog, What to Know About Data Center Overlay Networks, provides a deeper dive on overlays.)

While VXLAN is only one Continue reading

From the Desk of the CEO: Pluribus Raises $20M from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital to Fuel Growth

To the Pluribus Networks community:

Today, Pluribus Networks announced a funding round of $20 million led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. This is an extremely exciting time for our company and for the industry, and the capital raised during this round will enable Pluribus to increase R&D and add sales and marketing capacity to accelerate its growth in the distributed cloud market, as well as expand into adjacent segments. In the coming months, we’ll be announcing a number of new product and partner initiatives that reflect the market’s increasing need for cost-effective and highly-automated data center networking fabric solutions.

The timing around this funding news is truly ideal. Industry analysts are consistently forecasting an increase in market opportunities around data center switching as digital transformation continues to accelerate globally – Dell ’Oro Group expects the market to surpass $20 billion by 2025. Furthermore, research completed this year by Enterprise Management Associates shows that the majority of enterprises are increasing their number of data center sites and over 80% intend to deploy active-active data centers to support availability zones. In that same research enterprises identify their top two challenges as network operational complexity and network architecture complexity. Pluribus Networks’ Netvisor® Continue reading

Bringing the Power of SDN Automation to BGP EVPN Overlays

Some customers have asked whether Pluribus can create an overlay using BGP EVPN throughout the fabric, like other vendors do, and not just at the edge. The answer is “yes” we absolutely can do that, but unlike other vendors, we can apply the power of SDN automation to make it simpler.

The post Bringing the Power of SDN Automation to BGP EVPN Overlays appeared first on Pluribus Networks.

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