Nutanix Unveiling One-Click Networks to Broaden Enterprise Cloud Platform

Nutanix, Inc. announced at its inaugural .NEXT Europe Conference that it will extend its one-click datacenter automation capabilities to include network visualization, security and orchestration, and expand its already set of APIs.

Digital transformation, the emerging IoT and proliferation of mobile-first apps have triggered a major rethink in the way software is built, deployed and scaled. Modern applications are being developed with flexible architectures using smaller, more independent modular services. While these application architectures have improved overall IT agility, they have also exposed a multitude of IT challenges – visibility of application interdependencies for troubleshooting, new security threats and a dearth of unified management tools.

Visualize Networks to instantly triage issues across complete stack
The growth in the number of workloads puts more pressure on IT teams to monitor the end-to-end infrastructure in order to ensure that applications are meeting performance and availability SLAs. Without a single, unified view of all infrastructure resources, including the network environment, identifying, isolating and correcting issues becomes overly complex and time-consuming. Common challenges, such as VLAN misconfigurations, take hours to diagnose and fix, resulting in application downtime and lost revenue.

In addition to delivering valuable, at-a-glance insight into server, virtualization and storage resources, company’s Prism will provide application-centric visualization of the network. Rather than rely on a panoply of tools from different vendors, IT teams get a comprehensive view of the physical and virtual network topology. This includes a view of how individual VMs are connected to the physical and virtual network infrastructure, as well as providing detailed health and performance statistics of the network environment. Built-in network visualization enables datacenter managers to instantly identify and triage network issues impacting application SLAs.

Secure applications against emerging threats
with upcoming built-in microsegmentation
Modern application environments are composed of hundreds or thousands of individual applications and services, with each a possible point of attack. An internal application that has been compromised poses a serious threat to all other workloads running in the enterprise datacenter. Microsegmentation technologies have been available for some time to address these internal threats by controlling east-west traffic between applications, but widespread adoption has been slowed by the complicated setup and management commonly demanded by large-scale SDN deployments.

Tightly integrated into the company’s cloud infrastructure stack, firm’s Acropolis Microsegmentation Services (AMS) will statefully inspect, monitor and govern communication flows between individual workloads to provide a more secure application environment. Application-specific policies will be defined within Prism, giving IT teams a unified control plane to manage and secure communications between VMs, container-based applications and microservices running in a common environment. AMS can be deployed in minutes, and will obviate the need to invest in large and complex SDNs to protect the application environment.

“Moving to the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform has already allowed us to shift our focus to delivering value back to our business,” said Alexandre Delen, MD, Delen Private Bank. “With the addition of microsegmentation services, we can be confident that our critical applications will be secure without having to overlay an entirely new virtual network topology.“

Orchestrate networking and security services with one-click
Orchestrating the various network services required for application delivery is not only complex and error-prone, it can slow the modernization of enterprise datacenters. Achieving more agile, dynamic and cloud-like infrastructure demands that networks be made invisible, just like compute and storage resources, so that IT teams can refocus efforts on delivering applications critical to the business.

Acropolis provides simple and open APIs that allow for automated policy updates to top-of-rack (ToR) switches, application delivery controllers (ADCs) and firewalls based on application lifecycle events, providing administrators a streamlined and automated application deployment workflow.

Coud networking vendor Arista Networks, Inc. and storage networking vendor Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., as well as ADC and security vendors such as Citrix Systems, Inc. and F5 Networks, Inc. can now automate network provisioning and modify policies in real-time based on application and IT lifecycle changes.

Additionally, virtualized network and security services can be intelligently inserted into the application environment based on app-centric policies, ensuring that the proper services are applied to each application and are executed in the right sequence. These services will complement company’s native visualization and network security capabilities, providing advanced application inspection and threat mitigation capabilities. Prominent security vendors such as Illumio and vArmour can use the service insertion and orchestration capabilities to enable turnkey, fully orchestrated security solutions that provide advanced security enforcement and threat mitigation, and reduce operational complexity.

IT teams benefit from Prism serving as a single point of control for all infrastructure resources, along with network integration so that network-based services instantly adapt to changes in the virtual environment.

“Businesses clearly see the value in converging the datacenter to reduce complexity, but stopping at storage and virtualization is not enough. Networking and security are integral functions that can no longer be treated as piecemeal add-ons that introduce more complexity and distract IT from delivering value back to the business,” said Sunil Potti, chief product and development officer, Nutanix. “We’re committed to making the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform the de facto standard for companies looking to reduce IT complexity while benefitting from the complete integration of all IT infrastructure, from storage to security.“

Network visualization and the initial set of APIs for network orchestration will be available by January 2017.

The remaining capabilities are under development.

“Nutanix is continuing to innovate by converging yet another datacenter silo within its enterprise cloud stack,” said Eric Sheppard, research director, IDC. “Given the frequency of security breaches being uncovered, protecting applications and data against threats has become a top priority for enterprises. Having an integrated solution that delivers all aspects of infrastructure, including network security and orchestration, will greatly benefit customers of all sizes.“

“Nutanix APIs for network provisioning and management will further enhance the value customers experience with simplified management and one-click automation,” said Steve Shah, VP, product management, Citrix. “We believe that automation is a key requirement for delivering the best experience for our customers and the Citrix/Nutanix relationship will help us deliver on this requirement for cloud and hybrid environments with Citrix NetScaler.“

“Arista’s Extensible OS (EOS) Acropolis tracer and MicroSegmentation Services (MSS) automates the provisioning of physical networking infrastructure and security services via a tight integration with Nutanix enterprise cloud platform APIs.” said Ed Chapman, VP, business development and alliances, Arista. “The joint solution simplifies management and provisioning, speeds up service delivery and lowers costs through reduced complexity and increased operational efficiency.“

“We’re excited to be part of the Nutanix enterprise cloud platform because it demonstrates the value of open, turnkey, event-driven automation,” said Jason Nolet, SVP, switching, routing and analytics products group, Brocade. “Nutanix integration with the Brocade Workflow Composer automation platform, powered by StackStorm, will enable seamless provisioning, troubleshooting and remediation of networking services. As a result, Nutanix customers can increase their agility and operational efficiency.“

“F5 is excited to demonstrate the API-level integration between BIG-IP using iWorkflow and the Nutanix environment,” said Calvin Rowland, SVP, business development and public cloud, F5 Networks. “These new capabilities enable our customers to more easily automate, orchestrate, and manage critical application delivery services in their hybrid cloud deployments.“

“Nutanix is one of our key platform partners in delivering security to the enterprise,” said Alan Cohen, chief commercial officer, Illumio. “Through jointly offering a rich API and simple management experience, our customers benefit from greater visibility and application-centric, dynamic policy enforcement.“

“Nutanix is a strategic partner for vArmour. We go to market together globally,” said Timothy Eades, CEO, vArmour. “We both fundamentally agree that understanding interactions between users, applications and networks is foundational to securing the cloud. We deliver this value to our joint customers 24 x 7 x 365.“

Nutanix blog