Nuage Networks Aids Adoption of Cloud Services

Nuage Networks is a software-defined networking (SDN) project being supported by Alcatel-Lucent; it has recently released its Virtualized Services Platform (VSP), which is a software-based solution which, according to the startup, is expected to alter the face of data center networking and speed up the adoption of cloud services.

The CEO of Nuage Networks, Sunil Khandekar, said: “It takes weeks sometimes for virtual machines to be connected to the network after they are instantiated. At Nuage Networks, we are going to change that. We are bringing the world's most advanced, comprehensive and powerful SDN solution that includes programmability and automation in a way that lets virtual machines be instantly and rapidly connected to the network.”

According to Nuage, the VSP is a “second-generation” SDN solution, and can automate the end-to-end data center network, cutting networking provisioning time from days to minutes. Currently targeted by the platform are telecom and cloud service providers, and it can also scale to support large data centers with over a thousand customers. It therefore makes it appropriate for dealing with public, private and hybrid cloud services.

Three essential components make up VSP, and these are the Virtualized Services Directory (VSD), Virtualized Services Controller (VSC) and Virtual Routing and Switching (VRS). The VSD is key to programmable policy and analytics engines for the platform, whereas the VSC is an SDN controller used for operating Alcatel-Lucent’s Server Router Operating System (SR OS).

VSP can work with the OpenStack, CloudStack and VMware cloud platform, and is vendor-agnostic in regards to networking gear.

Khandekar said: “We recognize that the choices have been made in data centers. These are data centers that are currently operating – they just need the automation. So to us, it doesn't matter what choice has been made in virtual compute platform or the hypervisor technology. It doesn't matter what networking hardware choices have been made. We will provide automation ... for any existing data center environment, anytime, every time [and for] any cloud.”

The release of Nuage Networks will ensure a more aggressive competition with other companies involved in networking, and which are largely invested in the SDN space, such as Cisco, Big Switch Networks and VMware, which in July purchased SDN-focused start-up Nicira.

Additional networking players like Juniper and Brocade have made strategic buys in the SDN space over the last year, and seeks to claim their place in market IDC projects valued at $3.7 billion by 2016.

Virtualized Services Platform trials begin this month in Europe and North America, and early trials are available for the U.K.-based cloud service provider Exponential-e, French telecoms service provider SFR, Canadian telecoms service provider TELUS and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). The product will be made available globally from mid-2013. (CY) Link