SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 07, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Big Switch Networks®, The Cloud-Native Networking Company, will be at Nutanix .NEXT to showcase Big Cloud Fabric™ (BCF), an intelligent networking fabric that is ideal for Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) due to its scale-out nature and simplicity. Big Switch is a member of the Nutanix technology alliance partner program, Nutanix Elevate and BCF has been validated Nutanix Ready Core for networking.
Big Switch is a Nutanix .NEXT silver sponsor and its next-gen networking experts will be on-hand to discuss and demo the validated Nutanix + Big Switch Hyperconverged Networking joint solution at BOOTH S18, at .NEXT, May 8th - 10th in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The introduction of HCI technology has fundamentally altered the enterprise storage landscape by offering increased performance, enhanced data services, lower CapEx, and simplified operations. The network simplicity and automation introduced via Big Cloud Fabric, which leverages an SDN-based leaf/spine Clos fabric and open networking hardware to enable rapid provisioning of networks for scale-out deployments and high performance for large clusters, is ideal for HCI environments.
Big Cloud Fabric automates the provisioning of network resources through seamless integration with HCI orchestration systems and provides full visibility of HCI environments to network teams, thus becoming the “networking easy button” for IT teams deploying modern storage solutions and software-defined data centers (SDDCs). Additionally, BCF reduces networking TCO by deploying on industry-standard switch hardware from Dell EMC open networking, Edgecore white box, and the HPE Altoline family.
Big Cloud Fabric Demonstrations at Nutanix .NEXT -- Advanced Network Automation
BCF meets the unique requirements of HCI environments, and enables networks to operate at the speed of HCI. This advanced network automation and real-time visibility removes bottlenecks typically experienced with proprietary network designs that are manual, switch-by-switch architectures, based on traditional CLI commands. With BCF, network teams do not need to intervene during host and VM change management. Cloud teams are able to deploy hosts and VMs at will, without creating tickets for network provisioning. Network teams get real time visibility, thus ensuring trust in the network automation, with full verification.
Specifically, BCF’s integration with the Nutanix HCI platform provides:
- Integration with Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) and VMware ESXi hypervisor on hosts controlled by Nutanix Prism Central
- Automated bootstrapping and detection of Nutanix AHV hosts
- Automated network provisioning of Nutanix hosts and VMs, including provisioning of leaf-to-host multi-chassis link aggregation and L2 network segmentation creation
- Automatic provisioning of distributed routing for VMs across different segments
- End-to-end (multi-hop) troubleshooting across the leaf-spine fabric with a one-click fabric trace workflow
- High east-west traffic across the server/storage nodes with its high-performance 10G/25G/40G/100G scale-out fabric.
- Scale-out fabric to incrementally provision additional nodes of capacity and performance as the application demands increase.
Big Cloud Fabric & Nutanix HCI
The Incheon “Smart City” is a free economic zone launched in 2003 that today is a self-contained living and business district featuring everything from air and sea transportation to residences, shopping and entertainment in South Korea. For its data center modernization initiative, Incheon Smart-city deployed BCF with a Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, which created a logical abstraction for the physical network via SDN principles, enabling a scale-out network fabric as a single logical switch for the applications. Dell EMC open networking hardware is also in the HCI environment. Incheon Smart-city reviewed alternative network fabrics, but found BCF to have superior technical architecture, enabling Incheon Smart-city to further simplify its Enterprise Cloud deployment powered by Nutanix by providing an easily scaled-out and automated network fabric solution. In deploying software-defined technology, Incheon Smart-city was able to cut down nearly $10M in costs associated with platform building and integration, and to save more than 60% of data center space.
Supporting quotes
“Big Switch’s mission is to make networks operate at the speed of software-defined data centers, while reducing TCO by up to 50% and removing vendor lock-in,” said Prashant Gandhi, Chief Product Officer, Big Switch Networks. “When deployed with Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, BCF offers a modern, integrated networking solution that is ideal for cloud-native as well as traditional applications.”
"Modern software-defined storage infrastructures need software-defined networks, such as what Big Switch offers. In terms of hyperconverged infrastructure, Big Cloud Fabric improves deployment and operational automation and provides much needed visibility," said George Crump, Founder, Storage Switzerland. "As HCI clusters scale-out, the performance and complexity of legacy networking architectures becomes increasingly problematic. If network design is not factored into planning, it can result in unexpected networking costs, performance bottlenecks and added complexity that can stall HCI deployments."
“The software-defined data center is an ideal option for designing a high-tech city, but to achieve the maximum flexibility, scalability and automation promised from SDDC environments, the network, at the core of the SDDC is crucial,” said Jongan Park, Network head at Incheon Smart-city. “Through advanced software-defined technologies such as Big Cloud Fabric, which is implemented in the Incheon metropolitan area, we achieved both cost reduction and effective operation management. Network automation and seamless services have led to higher business efficiency, especially in the areas of operation and management. We are very satisfied with the results.”
Resources
Tech Demo: BCF Nutanix AHV Integration: http://bit.ly/2wh9QH2
Tech Demo: Big Cloud Fabric - Nutanix Integration: http://bit.ly/2HQq9jA
Video: Big Cloud Fabric Explained: http://bit.ly/2kR5Hix
Webinar: Nutanix and Big Switch: Next-gen Networking for Enterprise Clouds: http://bit.ly/2m5iELc
Webinar: How Software-Defined Networking Can Simplify Scale-Out HCI: http://bit.ly/2Jxhr6V
Webinar: Leveraging Next-Gen Networking to Unlock the Power of HCI http://bit.ly/2rplgDN
Blog: Big Cloud Fabric, the Ideal SDN Fabric for Nutanix HCI: http://bit.ly/2F6S9tl
Data Sheet: Big Cloud Fabric: http://bit.ly/2G9SkFQ
Solution page: HCI Networking: http://bit.ly/2E1zqjI
About Big Switch Networks
Big Switch Networks is the Next-Generation Data Center Networking Company. We disrupt the status quo of networking by designing intelligent, automated, and flexible networks for our customers around the world. We do so by leveraging the principles of software-defined networking (SDN), coupled with a choice of industry-standard hardware. Big Switch Networks has two solutions: Big Monitoring Fabric, a next-generation network packet broker, which enables pervasive security and monitoring of data center and cloud traffic for inline or out-of-band deployments and Big Cloud Fabric, the industry's first next-generation switching fabric that allows for choice of switching hardware for OpenStack, VMware, Container, and Big Data use cases. Big Switch Networks is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA. For additional information, email info@bigswitch.com, visit www.bigswitch.com or follow us on Twitter @bigswitch, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Copyright 2018 Big Switch Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Big Switch Networks, the Big Switch logo, Big Cloud Fabric, Big Mon, Big Monitoring Fabric, BMF, BigSecure, Big Switch Labs, Big Tap, BSN, Switch Light, ONL Certified, and ONL Certified Gold, ONLX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Big Switch Networks, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks, service marks, registered marks or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners. Big Switch Networks assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracies in this document. Big Switch Networks reserves the right to change, modify, transfer or otherwise revise this publication without notice.
Media & Analyst contact:
Kate Lehman
kate.lehman@bigswitch.com