Pluribus Networks Announces Virtualization-Centric Fabric 

LAS VEGAS, Nev., Dec. 8 -- Pluribus Networks, the company that brings the power of virtualization to the network, today announced Virtualization-Centric Fabric (VCF), its robust architectural approach to the burgeoning software-defined network marketplace. Uniquely different from competitive offerings, and based entirely on proven approaches to networking, clustering, management and resiliency, Pluribus VCF is available now and delivered as part of Pluribus’ family of Netvisor operating systems for open switches. Pluribus VCF delivers the industry’s only completely virtualized networking fabric with macro segmentation that includes complete flow-level visibility.

The Pluribus patented Virtualization-Centric Fabric (VCF) architecture focuses on the needs of an agile data center network, providing the essential and elastic network connectivity amongst its virtual workloads and their distributed services. The Pluribus VCF architecture is at the heart of the Pluribus and Ericsson business partnership that was announced earlier this year at the Intel IDF conference to support Ericsson’s next generation Hyper Scale Data Systems for the Cloud.

“In the data center networking space, Pluribus’ advanced fabric technology was exactly the approach we were looking for as we developed our hyperscaled Cloud solutions, like our recently announced HDS8000. Pluribus shares our vision of elastic capacity, with deep visibility and control,” said Howard Wu, Head of Product Line, Hyper Cloud Solution, Business Unit Cloud & IP, Ericsson. “Ericsson has a long standing expertise in optical networking and when combined with Pluribus’ VCF fabric architecture, our customers will realize a level of on-demand and subscription capabilities not available anywhere else.”

“CIO’s are increasingly challenged to be strategic by transforming datacenter operations into a competitive advantage in an environment driven by the dramatic rise in the virtualization, volume and velocity of network traffic due to 'big' data and other modern applications,” said Kumar Srikantan, CEO of Pluribus Networks. “The Pluribus VCF architecture is built bottoms-up for these transformative changes in the datacenter and delivers on the key tenets of agility, unparalleled application insight and enhanced security – all table stakes for business success.”

Key attributes of Pluribus VCF include:

• Virtualized networking fabric - the creation of a virtualized networking fabric at the hardware layer in dedicated switches, rather than consuming server-level resources. Each switch participates in the switching fabric as an equal partner, with complete visibility into the entire network and its end-points and flows.
• Virtual fabric automation - maintains virtualized connectivity across the entire fabric, regardless of the number of switches or intermediaries involved.
• Virtual Port (vPort) and Virtual Network (vNet) segmentation - at the macro and micro levels, enabling any source and destinations, physical or virtual, to be combined into virtual networks.
• Virtual TAP - provides visibility to information that flows between any source and destination, physical or virtual. Virtual flow (vFlow) management, enabling sessions to be copied, re-directed or terminated via user or programmatic command.
• Virtual fabric API - allows advanced applications to take advantage of the fabric as a single entity, using common programming interfaces including REST, Java, JSON and C++.
• Fabric-wide Command Line Interface (CLI) - allowing interaction from any point to the entire fabric, making simple changes that span the infrastructure. This ensures compatibility with existing tools, processes and associated management best practices.
• Relies on industry-standard TCP/IP protocols - providing full compatibility with existing networking infrastructures, and the use of existing spines and backbones during the transition to a more agile topology.

“SDN is evolving rapidly from technology in search of problems to an essential IT element needed to create agile IT in support of the transformation to a digital business, and this highlights the shortcomings of traditional approaches to networking and connectivity,” said Peter Christy, Research Director at 451 Research. “Pluribus’ VCF demonstrates the value of tightly integrating switching with a powerful server operating system, simplifying the creation of application transparent elastic connectivity, an important advance for highly effective private clouds and software-defined data centers.”

Pluribus Virtualization-Centric Fabric is available now and can be enabled within all of its Netvisor networking operating system offerings, version 2.2 or later.

About Pluribus Networks

Pluribus Networks provides the missing component for software defined data centers – virtualized networking. Our open networking with fabric clustering solutions transform your existing, inflexible network infrastructure into a strategic asset that meets today’s dynamic business challenges. Our easily deployable architecture virtualizes the network to make it more resilient and intelligent while improving visibility and automating its operation. Our customers leverage their existing IT network infrastructure, running more cost efficiently and bringing new business applications online faster. Learn more at www.pluribusnetworks.com and @pluribusnet.

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Source: Pluribus Networks