VMware adds Virtual Cloud Network innovations

VMware has unveiled Virtual Cloud Network innovations that help will customers create a network that better supports current and future business initiatives. With advancements across the VMware networking and security portfolio, customers will be able to more effectively manage the rapid shift to remote work, deliver traditional and modern applications faster and more securely, and reduce the cost and complexity of connecting and protecting the distributed enterprise.

According to VMware, businesses today, and the IT and application development teams supporting them, are racing to adapt to a new normal. Application architectures are more modern and cloud-native; on-premises data centres are extending to include multicloud and edge compute environments; and the work environment is no longer a single campus or branch, but rather anywhere an employee can connect to the Internet. This new reality introduces complexity that the network that has served us for the past 20 years cannot address.

“Customers tell us they want the same level of automation they have in the public cloud across their entire environment. But while they can automate some parts of their network, other parts such as firewalls and load balancers still require manual tickets for provisioning. That’s why partial automation is an oxymoron; it’s a half-built bridge that does nothing to get customers to where they want to be,” said Rajiv Ramaswami, COO, products and cloud services, VMware.

“The VMware Virtual Cloud Network delivers the automation and economics of the public cloud across every element of the network and spanning the entire distributed enterprise at a time when agility and cost matter more than ever.”

At VMworld 2020, VMware delivered solutions and services to help its customers survive and thrive in what it calls "the most turbulent market in generations". The company announced that it will deliver new Virtual Cloud Network innovations across three areas:

- Automation that enables the public cloud experience;

- Modern application connectivity and security services; and

- Solutions that re-imagine what’s possible in network security.

Network automation with a public cloud experience

VMware will add more cloud automation and scale, uptime and resiliency, machine learning-based predictive analytics, and intelligence to the virtual cloud network. VMware NSX-T 3.1 will support even larger-scale global deployments and disaster recovery use cases and automated deployment workflows. VMware will double the scale of NSX Federation, add new API-driven advanced routing and multicast capabilities, plus offer Terraform Provider support. VMware vRealize Network Insight 6.0 will bring new assurance and verification capabilities as well as expanded VMware SD-WAN visibility.

These updates will enable better planning for virtual and physical networks, improved network uptime and resiliency, faster troubleshooting, and proactive identification of potential network problems based on intent, and more effectiveness in achieving service level agreements.

VMware Edge Network Intelligence is a new AIOps solution based on technology acquired from Nyansa. It will provide automated and actionable intelligence that helps assure users and Internet of Things (IoT) devices on campus, in branches, or in the home get the network performance they need to support applications. AIOps refers to a combination of artificial intelligence and operations functions that offer more synergy than when the functions operate separately.

Connecting and protecting modern apps

Organisations looking to improve productivity, agility, and customer experience are embracing a container-based, microservices architecture and standardising on Kubernetes for container management. The connectivity and security needed to address microservices requirements while at the same time connecting Kubernetes clusters to the infrastructure introduces the need for a rich, multilayer networking stack.

VMware is extending the Virtual Cloud Network to connect and protect these environments through VMware Tanzu Service Mesh powered by NSX and support for Project Antrea, an open source initiative that enables Kubernetes networking and security wherever Kubernetes runs, including on-premise vSphere, public clouds as well as edge use cases. Tanzu Service Mesh includes new capabilities focused on improving application continuity, resiliency, and security. The new VMware Container Networking with Antrea consists of signed images and binaries and full support for Project Antrea. VMware Container Networking with Antrea will be included in VMware NSX-T and vSphere 7 with Tanzu. Applications running on Kubernetes clusters using Antrea as the container networking interface (CNI) can be discovered, connected, and better protected by Tanzu Service Mesh.

Re-imagining network security

VMware will deliver firewall performance and programmable intelligence to the Virtual Cloud Network by enabling VMware NSX to run on leading SmartNICs (intelligent network interface cards). This includes advanced security for bare metal and highly-sensitive workloads such as databases which are hard to protect today. Additionally, it enables “air gapping” of infrastructure, separating applications and hypervisors from the security controls on the SmartNIC.

VMware also announced VMware NSX Advanced Threat Prevention, which combines NSX Distributed IDS/IPS* with advanced malware detection (sandboxing) and AI-powered network traffic analysis (NTA) acquired from Lastline. These NTA capabilities use unsupervised and supervised machine learning models to more accurately identify threats and minimise false positives compared to other network traffic analysis tools. The solution delivers an industry-first ability to apply virtual patches at every workload, something traditionally only implemented at the perimeter, enabling more effective response to sophisticated threats before they disrupt business.

Bharti Airtel is India’s second-largest mobile network operator and the third largest on the planet. Manish Singh, GM, Cloud Operations for Bharti Airtel said, “Our hardware-defined network architecture posed significant challenges to our aspirations to lead India’s digitised, mobile future. It could take weeks or months to complete global changes to switches, routers, firewalls or other network elements which could impact new service delivery or current performance. By moving to an automated and more secure VMware Virtual Cloud Network built on NSX, we have improved our agility by orders of magnitude, redefined our developer experience, and made security an intrinsic part of our infrastructure.”

Rentokil Initial provides services that protect people from the dangers of pest-borne disease and the risks of poor hygiene. Mike Howell, Group Director of IT shared services, Rentokil Initial said, "VMware SD-WAN helps us better secure a company-wide network which has resulted in up to 3,000% more bandwidth and savings of up to 50% in networking costs at some sites. Additionally, VMware NSX has become a fundamental technology underpinning our security posture, especially as we acquire companies. Being able to microsegment the network significantly to ring-fence the services, applications and data within each new acquisition helps us meet stringent regulatory requirements and reduces our attack surface.”

VMware’s Virtual Cloud Network is the only complete Layer 2-7 virtual networking solution. It delivers and distributes all networking services in software over a diverse set of underlay transport including broadband, 4G/LTE, MPLS, dedicated Internet access, and 5G. It provides automated one-click application deployment for any workload running in virtual machines, containers, or on bare metal servers; pervasive connectivity and visibility across data centres, clouds, and end users; and intrinsic security. VMware has more than 18,000 virtual cloud network customers, including 91 of the Fortune 100; is ranked #1 in SD-WAN as reported by leading analysts; connects more than 280,000 branches, with the largest single customer SD-WAN deployment exceeding 18,000 sites; offers the industry’s only 20 Tbps firewall; and has replaced more than 7,000 hardware load balancers.

VMware software powers the world’s complex digital infrastructure. VMware’s cloud, app modernisation, networking, security and digital workspace platforms are architected to form a flexible, consistent digital foundation on which to build, run, manage, connect and protect applications, anywhere.

Details:

VMware Tanzu Service Mesh and VMware Container Networking with Antrea are available. VMware NSX-T 3.1, vRealize Network Insight 6.0, VMware Edge Network Intelligence, and VMware NSX Advanced Threat Prevention are expected to be available in VMware’s Q3FY21, which ends on October 30, 2020.

*IDS stands for intrusion detection system; IPS stands for intrusion prevention system.