Category Archives: Network management

APN 3.0, Hardware, Multiprotocol Label Switching, Network management, Network management system, Networking, NMS, Talari

Talari Networks Upgrades Adaptive Private Networking for Mercury WAN Appliances

Talari Networks today announced APN 3.0, an upgrade to its APN (Adaptive Private Networking) operating software to support its family of Mercury WAN appliances. Talari is demonstrating APN 3.0 for the first time at Interop Las Vegas this week, Booth #2450.

With the introduction of APN 3.0, Talari’s WAN solution dynamically builds fully meshed connections in reaction to application demand across an aggregated virtual WAN consisting of  broadband, leased-line and other links. This allows enterprises to have a network that automatically adapts to changing traffic patterns and bandwidth demands to ensure that mission-critical applications receive priority and real-time applications are provided the QoS levels they require to perform optimally. In the past, companies were only able to achieve this dynamic network architecture through a combination of disparate technologies or through an expensive fully meshed MPLS network.

Key new features and benefits of the APN 3.0 software release include:

  • Dynamic Conduits ? Allows the automated build up and tear down of a fully meshed network that reacts to changing traffic demands by creating best-path, multi-link tunnels across private or public Internet access links. As traffic from location to location exceeds bandwidth policy reservation thresholds or failures are detected, APN 3.0 builds a dynamic tunnel between those locations in real-time, allowing traffic to bypass some hops to decrease latency. All paths/links are monitored on a sub-second basis for quality, including the new ones, to ensure latency has been decreased. With dynamic conduits, network managers don’t have to anticipate traffic patterns and they can ensure adequate bandwidth exists for critical traffic and no sessions fail.
  • Single Point Configuration ? Talari’s WAN appliances communicate with one another to build an image of the network, the possible paths through the network, and the latency, loss and jitter of each path. This alleviates the need to configure each device within the network or to manually anticipate changing network demands.
  • Complete Network Visibility ? A new off-board Network Management System (NMS) provides full visibility of the Talari network, devices and all links, allowing network managers to easily visualize traffic patterns, quality issues and network outages.

APN 3.0 is fully compatible with leading network management and reporting tools. The operating software will be generally available in July 2013 and accessible via the Talari Customer Support Portal as a free upgrade for existing customers and the NMS will be sold as an optional add-on product.

Cloud & IT Management, ControlTower, Data monitoring switch, Network management, Network Monitoring, Scalability

Ixia ControlTower Promises Comprehensive Visibility Via Single Interface to Cloud Facilities, Distributed Enterprises

Ixia has introduced its ControlTower architecture to help cloud hosting facilities and large enterprise campuses scale and rapidly deploy multiple segments for centralized, intelligent monitoring. The scalable ControlTower architecture provides a single user interface for comprehensive monitoring of network performance and security tools housed in dispersed racks or geographic locations.

The ControlTower architecture builds on the capabilities of the Ixia Anue Net Tool Optimizer (NTO) network monitoring switches, which aggregate, filter, load balance and de-duplicate network traffic to intelligently connect data center and cloud provider networks with monitoring tools. This enables network operators to meet increasing bandwidth demands while retaining critical, packet-level visibility into application performance and security at line rate, all managed via a simple yet powerful central interface.

The ControlTower architecture extends the boundaries of the visible network beyond a single data center with a highly scalable approach that improves monitoring of distributed environments by providing:

  • Maximum efficiency: Powered by the Anue NTO’s custom dynamic data traffic filtering capabilities, network monitoring switches filter traffic upon ingress to reduce traffic on the interconnect links and the potential for dropped packets.
  • Simple usability and control: Ixia’s user interface presents the entire distributed visibility environment as a single switch, allowing administrators to add new monitored network segments with no added management complexity or overhead — making management of a large number of network segments just as easy as managing one.
  • Flexible deployment options: Using Ixia’s ControlTower architecture, network monitoring switches may be easily deployed in a single high-density stack, distributed across the top of multiple racks in a data center or distributed to multiple buildings in a campus environment.

“As businesses continue to expand both their use of and reliance on secure, high-performing IT infrastructures, they are moving toward modular approaches that can include both internal and external cloud resources,” said Jim Frey, Vice President of Research for Network Management at Enterprise Management Associates. “Servers, storage and networking components are more often virtualized and can be activated as needed, and so monitoring strategies need to be flexible and scalable to keep pace. Distributed packet monitoring architectures such as Ixia’s ControlTower are critical for maintaining visibility in the face of dynamic resource provisioning and agile, hybrid environments.”

Ixia will demonstrate the ControlTower products at Booth No.1951 at Interop Las Vegas, May 7-9.

Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Network management, Network virtualization, Virtualization, Windows Server

F5 Extends Dynamic Networking to Windows Server-Based Virtual Network Environments

F5 Networks, Inc. today announced the F5 Network Virtualization Solution for Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. The solution gives F5 customers the flexibility to use the BIG-IP platform to deploy network services in cloud-driven data centers that are built on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. This announcement underscores F5’s commitment to deliver a dynamic, efficient data center that will ensure scalability, security, and manageability across an organization’s IT environments and systems.

With this solution, the same network-based services that the BIG-IP platform provides—such as local and global load balancing, advanced traffic steering, access control, and application security and acceleration—can now also be used to deliver applications in the Microsoft cloud and virtualized network environments. The solution is enabled by F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager™ (LTM®) Virtual Edition (VE) running on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.

Organizations that use Hyper-V network virtualization to realize cost savings and operational efficiencies stand to gain many additional benefits from the F5 solution, including:

  • Improved Flexibility – Working in conjunction with Hyper-V
    network virtualization, the F5 solution supports seamless, low-cost
    migration to the cloud by allowing organizations to use the same
    policies and IP addresses in the cloud that they currently use in the
    physical network.
  • Cost Savings – The F5 solution accelerates data center
    consolidation by connecting hybrid cloud environments, enabling
    organizations to cut costs while extending their applications and
    services.
  • Efficient Network Management – The F5 solution can
    intelligently manage network traffic at layers 4-7, mitigating the
    need for organizations to build and manage large layer 2 networks.
  • Streamlined ADN Services – The F5 solution runs on Windows
    Server 2012 Hyper-V, and all services are applied in BIG-IP LTM VE, so
    no software upgrades or special code is required on the physical
    network.