network virtualization

Cisco’s John McCool Talks Virtualization

July 11, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

NetworkWorld published a great interview yesterday with John McCool, senior VP of data center, switching and security at Cisco. McCool sees a great future for virtualization around the company’s most successful product in its entire history, the Catalyst 6500 (and its successor, the Nexus 7000 Series, which was recently unveiled), combined with its own forray into virtualizing the data center with its Data Center 3.0 initiative.

A small excerpt:

What other areas are investment priorities?

Virtualizing services in the branch by centralizing those services in the data center. That’s a trend that’s here to stay. [Application Control Engine] and applications embedded into the network infrastructure would be another area that we’ll continue to drive very heavily.

Do you plan to take virtualization above the network to the server or application level?

You see a component of that already in Unified I/O. So the I/O component, really virtualizing that over a single connection to the network, is very fundamental. And then being able to split that out further in the networking device. That’s getting ingrained in the architecture of the data center, very much touching the connection to the server itself.

Do you plan to invest in another hypervisor vendor, similar to your relationship with VMware?

No announcements to date. We’re continuing to work with all the hypervisor vendors. We are interested in virtualized data centers and to the extent that hypervisor and virtualized servers exist in the data center we think that’s a very powerful construct for customers and one that’s going to take network support.

Read the rest of the interview here.

[Source: Cisco Blogs]

Cisco Systems

Cisco Talks Up Data Center 3.0 Initiative, Wants To “Demistify Virtualization”

June 24, 2008 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

Cisco Systems today announced updates to several of its key products to accelerate applications in Data Center 3.0, Cisco’s vision for a virtualized data center tied together by a unified network fabric.

Today’s announcements at Cisco Live also featured new tools and training to help networking professionals master the complexity of virtualized data centers. In essence, the company is rolling out a host of software and services designed to expand what data center administrators can do with virtualization.

“Real-time collaborative applications, energy concerns and the need to achieve greater efficiency from assets are driving IT managers to transform their data centers through new technologies,” said John McCool, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Data Center, Switching and Services Group, and co-chair of the Cisco EcoBoard . “By providing virtualization technologies across the data center, Cisco aims to help businesses achieve the agility and resiliency they need to compete on a global scale.”

Where’s the beef, you ask?

The announcements coming out of Cisco include the release of the company’s WAAS (Wide Area Application Services) software version 4.1, which offers virtualized application hosting services, application acceleration and video deliver for branch offices, and Cisco’s VFrame Data Center release 1.2 for infrastructure provisioning with Cisco’s ACE (Application Control Engine) and VMware’s ESX Server software.

In addition, Cisco is releasing version 3.1 of ACE for the ACE 4710 application switch, which offers up to 4 gigabits-per-second of throughput. The company also is announcing the Cisco Data Center 3.0 professional programs and services for support customers and partners with data center deployments. Included in the services offerings is Cisco’s new Data Center Efficiency Program, part of the company’s Data Center Assurance Program 4.0, a Web-based tool that enables users to analyze power use in the data center and identify power and cooling technologies most useful in their facilities.

WAAS 4.1, VFrame 1.2 and the ACE Appliance will be available in the third quarter.

[Source: The Register]

Fortinet Patents Four New Network Virtualization And Multi-Threat Security Related Inventions

June 20, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Fortinet, a provider of unified threat management (UTM) solutions, has announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office has awarded the company four additional patents for network virtualization and security related inventions. These new patents strengthen Fortinet’s intellectual property portfolio, bringing Fortinet’s total awarded patents to 17.

Charles Cote, Fortinet Regional Director for Australia and New Zealand commented on ARN:

“Security consolidation and virtualisation are key business trends for enterprise networks. Fortinet is the clear technology pioneer in the unified threat management space, with a long track record of innovation. Our security consolidation solutions based on these new virtualisation patents will help our customers build more efficient and easier to manage security systems.”

The four new patents reflect Fortinet’s focus, on innovative methods for processing network data while applying various security-related filtration processes within a consolidated and accelerated platform. Three of the newly awarded patents are directed to the routing and processing of data in virtualized environments.

“These patents support Fortinet’s innovation and vision for an integrated, multi-threat and virtualised approach to network security – groundswell areas for the networking and security industries,” said Michael Xie, CTO and co-founder of Fortinet. “As we continue our strong research and development efforts, our growing patent portfolio provides momentum for accelerating the course of innovation we are undertaking.”

[Source: ARN]

CloudShield Helps Service Providers Virtualize Network Appliances

June 12, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

CloudShield Technologies, a provider of services management and infrastructure security solutions, has announced (PDF) a new release of CPOS, a packet processing operating system which aims to reudce the cost and environmental impact of implementing high-traffic converged IP networks.

The new version of CPOS enables service providers and federal organizations to run multiple stand-alone applications simultaneously on a CloudShield platform or blade, with the ability to share applications across different departments or with other organizations. The latest version of CPOS also features a graphical ‘Virtual Patch Panel’ configuration environment, enabling the installation or reconfiguration of virtual appliances without service interruptions.

To guarantee reliable service, service providers deploy these appliances in pairs each sized with surplus processing capacity. Each would likely have a different management interface. With CloudShield, all of these functions can be delivered as discrete applications running on top of CPOS on a single CloudShield platform
or blade. Also, the total amount of processing capacity can be reduced because surplus capacity can be shared across these four applications, thereby reducing the carbon footprint.

The new Virtual Patch Panel enables service providers to graphically add, reconfigure or re-sequence applications in real-time without requiring any network downtime. Previously, it wasn’t possible to completely repurpose a network device without taking it off-line or without dropping any packets.

CPOS is available immediately for service providers and national governments.

[Source: VMBlog]

Nortel Unveils Network Virtualization Solution

April 28, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Nortel today announced the availability of a brand new network virtualization solution, enabling previously separated elements within enterprise networks to be linked together, harnessing the power of each to work together as one, eliminating the need for costly re-engineering when new services are needed quickly.

The pooling of network resources through virtualization can deliver sophisticated capabilities instantly such as turning up bandwidth in just one part of the network when videoconference use is high or increased security for only users of highly confidential information.

“Nortel’s network virtualization solution enables enterprises and service providers to simplify their communications infrastructure by allowing resources to be made available in a collective manner and to be allocated as needed,” said Cindy Borovick, research vice president, Data Center Networks, IDC. “This maximizes the capabilities of their network, decreasing wasted resources. It also limits the equipment that needs to be deployed, delivering savings over the life of the solution. The integration with a server virtualization solution gives new options for end-to-end virtualization deployments.”

Nortel’s network virtualization solution features the Ethernet Routing Switch (ERS) 8600 5.0 coupled with the Virtual Services Switch 5000, a new platform that consolidates network elements and provides flexible and dynamic network services on-the-fly, with proven integration with server virtualization solutions. The ERS 8600’s 10G high port density, industry-leading resiliency, Layer 3 routing virtualization and simplified virtual private network provisioning over the existing IP backbone, simplifies network design and increases cost-effectiveness and reliability. Its resiliency serves multiple customers, departments or user groups within the LAN and across the campus/metro network.

The VSS 5000 consolidates and virtualizes multiple functions onto a single device. It orchestrates and provisions services instantaneously. This innovative new product combines network services such as firewalls, application switching and SSL acceleration onto a single platform. The result is an end-to-end solution that lowers capital expenses while maximizing network resources.

[Source: CNNMoney]

Cisco APX, Network Virtualization The Right Way?

April 17, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Selena Frye over at TechRepublic talks about an interesting technology from Cisco called APX (Application eXtension Platform), made up of a hardware card, modified Linux software that runs on the card and a program for software developers.

The AXP is a card that goes into your Cisco router and that card runs a hardened version of Linux, customized by Cisco. So, you aren’t running Linux on your current Cisco router CPU, RAM, and Flash or in the IOS. You are running Linux on a card that is inserted into the router.

Once you have this card and the Linux OS, you can then run third-party applications on that platform. Think about that for a minute. What if you could run a protocol analyzer like Ethereal or an IPS like SNORT “in your router?” What if you could run WAN Compression, performance monitoring, and network management software ‘in your router?” Wow — that would be amazing!

The AXP card, a standard network module (NME) or AIM card, goes in the Cisco ISR Routers (1841, 2800, and 3800 series) and has its own memory, CPU, and Flash HD (and GB Ethernet in the case of the NME). As for the specs:

AXP has its own Linux CLI, error messages, debugging, and virtualization capabilities. It can run applications in various languages — C, Python, Perl, Java. You can even read and write router configuration through APIs and receive info about the status of the router. An application running in the AXP could know if the router was taking errors on the serial interface.