Pluribus Networks Extends SDN Reach

At the Open Networking User Group (ONUG) Spring conference today, Pluribus Networks announced an Adaptive Cloud Fabric architecture that enables virtual networks to be extended across multiple data centers.

Steve Shalita, vice president of marketing and business development for Pluribus Networks, says rather than simply limiting a virtual network to x86 servers located in a single data center, this new architecture enables IT organizations to treat a virtual network as a single logical entity spanning multiple data centers.

Other new features include the ability to replicate port states across a Layer 3 network, interoperability with Cisco virtual and physical networks, and integration with VMware vCenter.

For several years now, Pluribus Networks has been making a case for employing software-defined networks (SDNs) on top of industry standard x86 servers.

“Other approaches are bound to physical constraints,” says Shalita. “In some cases, it’s all the way down to the ASIC.”

Shalita says one of the reasons that deployment of SDNs is relatively small is because IT organizations are just now starting to appreciate the benefits of network virtualization alongside the investments they have already made in server virtualization.

Demand for higher levels of IT agility are pushing IT organizations toward SDNs and various forms of network virtualization. It’s still unclear how those technologies will manifest themselves, given the intense amount of competition between rivals such as VMware, Cisco, Pluribus Networks and a host of others. But the one thing that is clear is that the virtual network overlay only needs to be tied to the underlying physical network to a degree the IT organization that manages those networks prefers.