Plexxi, a provider of Hyperconverged Networking (HCN) solutions, announced the introduction of its new Switch 3eq 25/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet switches and the latest versions of its Plexxi Control software-defined network fabric control and Connect integration and workflow automation software, including an enhanced Nutanix Integration Pack.
Plexxi stated that with the update Nutanix customers are able to integrate its HCN fabric with Nutanix Enterprise Cloud environments to create a single, unified solution, featuring scalable compute, storage and networking for both VMware and Nutanix Acropolis environments.
Plexxi Connect 2.3 enables the same network automation of VM lifecycle events that Plexxi provides for VMware environments to Nutanix Acropolis AHV environments. The new Nutanix Acropolis AHV Integration capability enables customers to deploy an HCN fabric that is Nutanix-aware.
Plexxi's Connect Integration Pack is designed to eliminate resource intensive, time-consuming system integration and testing efforts by allowing off-the-shelf integration between Plexxi and applications and infrastructure such as Nutanix. Nutanix integration leverages the elements of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform configuration, including: cluster nodes, hypervisors (Nutanix AHV or VMware ESXi) and Nutanix Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) information.
Additionally, the Plexxi Control software enables dynamic configuration and adapts the Plexxi network fabric in response to compute and storage events. A key capability is automatic detection of VMs that comprise the storage subsystem and allocation of secure, dedicated high-speed network over the converged fabric. This helps to ensure performance and service quality for diverse applications workloads and effective use of networking resources.
The Plexxi software also creates a graphical representation of the network topology that integrates with Nutanix Prism and displays its state and status to aid analysis of the network.
The enhanced Plexxi Control 3.1 offers increased control and security of the Plexxi HCN fabric and introduces users, roles and authentication for secure user access to Plexxi switches. It also allows users to identify the specific VLAN carrying traffic such as storage and create fabric paths dedicated to this traffic.
Finally, Plexxi Switch 3eq is the first switch in a new Switch 3 Entry Series family with support for 25/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet interface speeds. Based on the Broadcom Tomahawk chipset, Switch 3eq provides enhanced data centre port density of up to 128 x 10 or 25 Gbit/s interfaces, 64 x 50 Gbit/s or 32 x 40 or 100 Gbit/s interfaces in a 1U form factor.
