Cisco wants to empower the network engineer, just like Embrane, to deploy virtual network services. But it’s not easy due to servers, virtualization, virtual networking, and flat out fear to not run big specialized boxes. Cisco has the Nexus 1110 that can run multiple Cisco virtual services such as VSM, VSG, etc. However, there are limitations on quantities and what particular services can be run on the 1110. Cisco cannot create a pool of 1110s and deploy virtual resources dynamically. There is a GUI manager, but not a hypervisor-like manager. The Nexus 1110 is a physical server running a Cisco modified hypervisor. This hypervisor doesn't seem to be off the shelf.
Post Update 6/26/2013: Think about deploying multiple virtual firewalls, load balancers, and other virtual services in a given environment. How do you know where to put a particular virtual FW (which physical host)? How do you know if it should be moved? How do you instantly deploy another FW VM based on a certain trigger? You may be thinking of vCenter as a comparison, but what I was referring to above was a hypervisor-like manager specifically built for network resources (services/VMs). It may be similar to an existing hypervisor in reality, but this one could be dedicated to the network team because we all know the Compute/Network teams will be independent for the foreseeable future.
Post Update 6/26/2013: Think about deploying multiple virtual firewalls, load balancers, and other virtual services in a given environment. How do you know where to put a particular virtual FW (which physical host)? How do you know if it should be moved? How do you instantly deploy another FW VM based on a certain trigger? You may be thinking of vCenter as a comparison, but what I was referring to above was a hypervisor-like manager specifically built for network resources (services/VMs). It may be similar to an existing hypervisor in reality, but this one could be dedicated to the network team because we all know the Compute/Network teams will be independent for the foreseeable future.
Embrane, a new player in the virtual networking L3-L7 space has a slick solution on deploying SOFTWARE solutions leveraging a distributed scale-out appliance architecture. They just announced two key wins at Peer1 and Sungard. Check out their website out for details on their overall architecture. I wrote a blog right after they launched in December 2011 also talking about their unique pricing model. Scale-out architecture and real scale-out (linear) pricing (other options available for those who demand high CAPEX :)).
What to do next if you are Cisco?
Not sure where this leaves vPath, but that's for a different day.
Regards,
Jason
Twitter: @jedelman8
What to do next if you are Cisco?
- Purchase Embrane.
- Migrate to using KVM and use UCS servers to host network services. Embrane already requires dedicated servers (empowering the network engineer)
- Deploy Open vSwitch for the UCS servers (why? Because the Virtual Supervisors can be a service running on these servers and we don’t want the VSM controlling the vswitch it resides on. It also gets Cisco some production deployments of OVS.)
- Migrate off VNMC and onto Embrane ESM offering dynamic provisioning, open APIs, and host of other cool features. ESM is the only network specific hypervisor manager for network resources today.
- DVA-enable Cisco VSG, ASA 1KV, vWAAS, and every other Cisco service. Just like Cisco has partners getting vPath-enabled, they can offer getting DVA-enabled to partners like Citrix and Imperva.
- Cisco becomes extremely relevant in the world of virtual networking and SDN-based L3-L7 network services.
- This becomes one small step for Cisco, but one giant leap for the network industry from mid-market up to Service Provider.
Not sure where this leaves vPath, but that's for a different day.
Regards,
Jason
Twitter: @jedelman8
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