VMware Advances Networking for the Digital Era with the Virtual Cloud Network

VMware, Inc. today outlined its vision for the future of networking, and unveiled the Virtual Cloud Network. The Virtual Cloud Network will enable organizations to create a digital business fabric for connecting and securing applications, data, and users across the entire network in a hyper-distributed world.

To deliver on this vision, VMware announced the VMware NSX networking and security portfolio to enable consistent, pervasive connectivity and security for apps and data across software defined data center, branch, cloud, and telco environments.

The NSX portfolio will include new capabilities that include:

i) VMware NSX SD-WAN integration with VMware NSX Data Center and VMware NSX Cloud, representing integration of VMware’s recent acquisition of VeloCloud

ii) NSX Cloud support for applications running in Microsoft Azure

iii) NSX Data Center support for containerized cloud-native and bare metal applications

iv) Telco/NFV and networking performance optimizations for distributed workloads in NSX Data Center

“The future of networking is software, and the network of the future is the Virtual Cloud Network,” said Rajiv Ramaswami, chief operating officer, products and services, VMware.

“VMware is helping customers today to build tomorrow’s software-defined Virtual Cloud Networks to connect and secure apps and users. And with the new NSX networking and security portfolio, we are helping customers build a Virtual Cloud Network today through a software based digital business fabric that is flexible, programmable and inherently secure network.”

“As enterprises choose to run more applications in public clouds, the parameters of the datacenter are being redrawn. In practical terms, the datacenter – where applications and data reside – is no longer exclusively an on-premises entity,” said Brad Casemore, IDC’s Research Vice President, Datacenter Networks, IDC. “It’s now inherently distributed, and that means the networks that support and deliver increasingly critical applications must be similarly transformed. With its vision for the Virtual Cloud Network, VMware is responding to the growing enterprise need for consistent network and security policy that supports applications regardless of where they reside and irrespective of the infrastructure on which they run and the

iii) Multi-Cloud Networking: VMware NSX Cloud provides consistent networking and security for applications running in both private VMware-based data centers and natively in public clouds. NSX Cloud addresses operational challenges inherent with using multiple public clouds, such as inconsistent policies and constructs across clouds; manual operations requiring policy for each cloud, region, and VPC: limited operational visibility into East-West traffic; and operations tools that are specific to each public cloud.

With the latest release of NSX Cloud, VMware will add new native controls for customers that are using Microsoft Azure as part of their multi-cloud strategy.

iv) Hybrid Cloud Connectivity: VMware NSX Hybrid Connect enables customers to solve one of the biggest challenges with hybrid cloud– consistent networking. VMware NSX Hybrid Connect enables customers to create a consistent, highly performant, and more secure software fabric that interconnects data centers and clouds while maintaining the same governance and control. With NSX Hybrid Connect, customers can seamlessly migrate workloads from any VMware environment to a modern software-defined data center environment running anywhere—on-premises, in the public cloud, or operated by a VMware Cloud Provider partner.

VMware enables customers to create a complete closed loop, intent-based system that delivers performance feedback through operational automation with 360-degree visibility, and fast remediation capabilities through proactive and predictive analytics. VMware vRealize Network Insight provides customers full visibility of all components within deployed services across private and public clouds, and virtual and physical environments. The VMware vRealize Suite enables customers to achieve continuous, near real-time data on the health, performance, capacity of network resources, along with prioritized alert notifications for closed-loop integration into resource and service orchestration workflows.