Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Netsocket Debuts SDN for for the Distributed Enterprise

Netsocket introduced its Virtual Network solution for enterprise campuses and distributed office LAN and edge networking environments. Most SDN solutions target data center or metro networks.


Netsocket's Enterprise Edition NVN vNetCommander orchestration application, which now commercially available, is comprised of a three-tier SDN architecture – providing end-to-end virtual networking, centralized orchestration and automation, and superior interoperability and integration with legacy routed networks as well as higher-level management systems such as Microsoft System Center. The Netsocket Virtual Network interconnects enterprise branches in just a few minutes, with no networking expertise required at the site. Its switching and routing components are automatically deployed and provisioned to each branch office using the centralized, intuitive network management application vNetCommander. The company said its web-based GUI, the vNetCommander, can handle automated deployment, installation, configuration and orchestration of virtualized networks all from a centralized console.

 “One of the advantages of NVN for distributed enterprises is that it facilitates an extremely low risk and low cost path to try SDN virtualized networking and to evaluate the benefits”, said Fletcher Hamilton, president and CEO of Netsocket.  “There is so much hype in the SDN world that it’s hard to know what solutions are really ready for prime time.   By implementing SDN first at a branch location, a solution like NVN can be seamlessly proven interoperable and operational within your existing network in just a few hours.  This allows an enterprise to easily separate the hype from the facts.”

http://www.netsocket.com.
http://www.virtualnetwork.com

In July, Netsocket, a start-up based in Plano, Texas, unveiled its flagship Netsocket Virtual Network (NVN) product suite for bringing SDN-based orchestration and automation capabilities to enterprise infrastructure based commodity x86 servers.

Netsocket has developed a three-tier SDN architecture for interoperability and integration with legacy routed networks as well as higher level management systems such as Microsoft System Center.  The NetSocketdesign uses a vFlow controller with routing, firewall, and VPN capabilities built-in.

Key goals include flexibility of configuration and management, seamless legacy network interoperability via the intrinsic routing capability in the controller,  and commoditization of switching functions by eliminating the need for any network hardware other than commodity layer 2 switches and off-the-shelf x86 servers.  The framework provides automated networking through NVN applications that are network configuration and operational state 'aware,' and capable of adaptively monitoring and controlling underlying network services. This would enable enterprises to cap their purchases of proprietary routers and layer 3 switches and begin to migrate towards an agile software-based network infrastructure that relies only on commodity servers and inexpensive layer 2 switches.

The Netsocket Virtual Network (NVN) product suite consists of software for x86 virtual server platforms.  Key components include:
  • vFlowController -- an SDN controller with intrinsic vRouter, vTunnel and vFirewall components.
  • vNetCommander -- a centralized management system for NVN that handles automated installation, provisioning and orchestration of the network.
  • vNetOptimizer -- a next generation virtualized version of Netsocket’s Cloud Experience Manager service assurance product, and will provide for real-time network service analytics, automation and optimization of the network.
Netsocket is natively targeting all of the popular hypervisors, including Microsoft Hyper-V. It is working on interoperability with OpenStack & Microsoft System Center.