Test Drive

Nutanix Unleashes Flow Networking to Streamline Hybrid Cloud Connectivity

October 27, 2021 4:00 pm |
min

THE NUTANIX SDN JOURNEY

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has come a long way since its inception in 2009 (check out MIT's review on this). Today, SDN is poised to become the de facto control and management solution for networks everywhere. This trend toward SDN has been accelerated through the exponential digital transformation of the pandemic with customers now looking to hybrid multi-cloud for answers.

Nutanix’s SDN journey chartered a new path in 2018 with SDN, launching Nutanix® Flow Security with Microsegmentation then quickly followed with a robust ID Based Firewall and Security Planning solution. These were the first pillars of our SDN vision.

Fast-following Flow Security, Nutanix implemented the second key pillar of SDN: Network Virtualization, or as Nutanix calls it, Flow Networking™. 

First introduced to provide secure multi-tenant network virtualization in Nutanix's managed Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service (or DRaaS) offering, Flow Networking quickly evolved for on-premise Nutanix customers, becoming available for Early Access following its announcement soon after .NEXT 2020.

NUTANIX FLOW NETWORKING NOW GENERALLY AVAILABLE (GA)

Today, Nutanix is pleased to announce the general availability of Flow Networking available to all Nutanix customers. 

As SDN has revolutionized networking, Flow Networking is redefining the hybrid multi-cloud. Nutanix is taking a holistic approach towards abstracting networks anywhere Nutanix workloads are run, helping make life easier for developers, users, and customers. 

Regardless of the current state of your cloud journey, Nutanix Flow Networking can help alleviate the complexity of your cloud-readiness through streamlined network operations. This concept continues to shape the Nutanix customer experience prompting ecstatic reactions from consumers of these  Nutanix products;  from our trusted Nutanix Service Providers to our strongest industry vertical customers like the Public Sector.

Flow Networking will soon integrate with the Flow Security portfolio of microsegmentation and ID Based Firewall/Security Planning. Together, you will be able to quickly achieve public cloud-like agility for your Nutanix AHV workloads while enabling your hybrid multicloud journey.

QUICKLY REALIZE NETWORK VALUE (ROI) & REDUCE OVERHEAD (TCO) WITH NUTANIX FLOW NETWORKING

Nutanix Flow Networking enhances multiple areas of your network operations allowing your highly skilled networking resources to refocus on enabling business value:

  • Self-Service Network provisioning
    The ability to provision virtual networks for themselves and their applications, accelerating low/no-code application deployments. This high-functioning but logical separation ensures secure isolation of applications/customers/tenants ensuring a more robust security posture. (Think private clouds for developers, anywhere)
  • Reduce Physical Network Complexity
    Flow Networking also extends abilities to physical networks where the complexity of physical networks and configurations can be reduced and improved creating faster outcomes for network changes ensuring business continuity.
  • Enable Multi-Tenant and Hosted Environments
    Service providers and enterprises alike will benefit from Flow Networking and Security by more easily providing secured and seamless networking environments for hosted and multi-tenant scenarios in any cloud scenario.
  • Create VPCs (Virtual Private Clouds)
    Flow Networking creates VPCs (Virtual Private Clouds) which are isolated network namespaces that users have come to expect from the public cloud. Each Flow Networking VPC is a separate namespace that has its own routing table, providing multi-tenancy needed to isolate groups (even with virtual networks that have overlapping IPs)
  • Extended VPC Functionality
    Each VPC facilitates external connectivity using NAT or routing, and secure encrypted VPN connectivity to remote sites (site-to-site VPN). Flow Networking policies then regulate the traffic associated with these virtual networks using network access control lists (ACLs), and can redirect policy-selected traffic to certain VMs.
  • Enable Your Hybrid Cloud
    Flow Networking is built from the ground up for hybrid deployments where virtual networking capabilities allow consumers to expand their deployments into elastic public cloud infrastructure, seamlessly. This creates total network consistency using network and security policies wherever Nutanix workloads are deployed.
    Nutanix Clusters is beginning to integrate with Flow Networking (AWS today, and Azure in development) enabling customers with their multi-cloud connectivity end-to-end. 
  • Create IT Automation
    Flow Networking enables and integrates simplified workflows into everyday tasks like user-onboarding, service-chaining, and logging centralization.
  • Automatic Disaster Recovery Failover and Testing
    Ensure your applications and data are not only safe but secure by testing and automating DR scenarios.

THE FUTURE OF NUTANIX FLOW NETWORKING

The future is bright for Flow Networking with new capabilities in development:

  • Stretch networks across two sites
  • Dynamic routing - eliminating the need for manual route configurations
  • Transit VPCs
  • Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC)

READY? SET? FLOW!

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