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    Integrating Physical and Virtual Networks

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    Centaur Archer
    This document discusses strategies for integrating physical and virtual networks in order to support cloud orchestration and automation. It explains that virtual networks need to connect to the physical network and interconnect data centers. It then describes several approaches that virtual switch vendors and network vendors are taking to better bridge physical and virtual networks, including using virtual switches, SDN controllers, and network overlays to provision and manage virtual network segments and apply policies across both network types.

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    Integrating Physical and Virtual Networks

    Uploaded by

    Centaur Archer
    64 views7 pages
    This document discusses strategies for integrating physical and virtual networks in order to support cloud orchestration and automation. It explains that virtual networks need to connect to the physical network and interconnect data centers. It then describes several approaches that virtual switch vendors and network vendors are taking to better bridge physical and virtual networks, including using virtual switches, SDN controllers, and network overlays to provision and manage virtual network segments and apply policies across both network types.

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    Integrating Physical and Virtual Networks

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    This document discusses strategies for integrating physical and virtual networks in order to support cloud orchestration and automation. It explains that virtual networks need to connect to the physical network and interconnect data centers. It then describes several approaches that virtual switch vendors and network vendors are taking to better bridge physical and virtual networks, including using virtual switches, SDN controllers, and network overlays to provision and manage virtual network segments and apply policies across both network types.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    64 views7 pages

    Integrating Physical and Virtual Networks

    Uploaded by

    Centaur Archer
    This document discusses strategies for integrating physical and virtual networks in order to support cloud orchestration and automation. It explains that virtual networks need to connect to the physical network and interconnect data centers. It then describes several approaches that virtual switch vendors and network vendors are taking to better bridge physical and virtual networks, including using virtual switches, SDN controllers, and network overlays to provision and manage virtual network segments and apply policies across both network types.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 7

    Integrating physical and

    virtual networks: Virtual


    switching tactics
    David Geer

    In order to make networks flexible enough to support cloud


    orchestration, engineers will have to bridge physical and
    virtual networks.

    Now that virtualization has taken hold in the data center, engineers have
    pushed the network into the virtual stack in order to route virtual
    machine (VM) traffic. But as virtual networks proliferate, network and
    server pros are forced to find ways to better integrate virtual and
    physical infrastructures.
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    This integration is essential to the orchestration and automation of VM


    provisioning and migration. Virtual networks route traffic between VMs
    in the stack, but it takes physical networks to connect these virtual
    environments to the outside world and to interconnect data centers.
    If the promise of automation and orchestration is the fluid
    provisioning and migration of VMs, virtual and physical networks have
    to be just as flexible, and manual network configuration for VMs wont
    remain an option. Whats more, engineers must be able to move VMs

    across both virtual and physical networks with their security and
    management policies intact. All of this requires communication between
    physical and virtual networks.

    Many Virtual Switching Strategies


    Emerge
    The process of bridging physical and virtual networks starts with virtual
    switches that provide visibility inside the virtualization stack.
    Both VMware and Microsoft have virtual switches built into their
    hypervisors, the vSphere Virtual Distributed Switch and the Hyper-V
    Virtual Switch, which provide visibility and make forwarding decisions.
    Until recentlybefore these switches were improvedthe virtualization
    team had to ask the networking team to create VLANs with Quality of
    Service (QoS) policies and to allot bandwidth for new VMs, according
    to Justin Giardina, chief technology officer of Iland, a cloud provider
    and VMware customer. Once the network team provisioned these
    resources, they couldnt share administration of these networks with the
    virtualization team.
    One of the best things to come out of VMwares technology for the
    distributed virtual switch is the ability to pass down administration
    capabilities to the virtualization engineer while keeping the physical
    network visible to the networking team as well, said Giardina.
    But VMwares approach to switching left network pros without the
    ability to apply their networking skills to the virtual network. To address

    this, Cisco launched the Nexus 1000v, which provides visibility into the
    stack, but also more networking control. The 1000v replaces switching
    in VMware or Microsofts hypervisors and extends traffic and security
    policy across virtual networks and VM paths. It also enables deep
    network monitoring and analysis within the virtual environment, with
    features like Switch Port Analyzer (SPAN), Encapsulated Remote SPAN
    (ERSPAN), NetFlow, packet capture/analysis, and DHCP/IGMPv3
    snooping.
    Arista Networks took a different approach to expanding networking
    capabilities in the virtual environment, integrated its EOS operating
    system with VMwares vSphere environment, thereby extending its own
    network programmability features into the virtual network.

    SDN and Overlays for Physical and


    Virtual Network Bridging
    Part of the goal of orchestration and automation is to enable cloud
    networks with automated provisioning of multiple distinct virtual
    network segments. The idea of these multi-tenant networks is to be able
    to turn up network segments on demand to support VM provisioning and
    migration.

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    SD-WAN makes secure networks possible in hybrid WANs

    Many enterprises are looking to use software-defined networking


    (SDN)controllers combined with distributed virtual switches to
    provision network segments or tunnels and to communicate back to the
    underlying physical network.
    These network software overlays are used to move traffic between
    virtual machines, as well to reach over Layer 2 or Layer 3 physical
    networks in order to connect servers and interconnect data centers.
    VMware relies on the VXLAN standard to build these overlays,
    while Microsoft uses NVGRE. To integrate the virtual edge, some
    vendors have made it so these controllers can communicate back to a
    Layer 2 switch outside the virtual switching infrastructure that is used to
    direct traffic.
    The Open vSwitch, which has gained the most traction next to
    VMwares vswitch, has led the way in combining virtual switching with
    a centralized controller to provision and manage overlays, as well as to
    more tightly integrate virtual and physical networks.
    The Open vSwitch works with a centralized OpenFlow-based
    controller to manage distributed virtual switches as one logical switch.
    Using the controller, the technology has a full view of every component
    and node on the virtual network and can direct individual data flows
    along with linked network services. The switch and controller software
    can institute cluster-level network configurations across many servers,
    eliminating the need to separately configure the network for each VM
    and physical machine. The switch also enables VLAN trunking,
    visibility via NetFlow, sFlow and RSPAN.

    The technology, which supports XenServer, Virtual Box, KVM


    environments, was largely initiated by Nicira Networks, which has since
    been acquired by VMware. VMware maintains that it will continue
    Niciras support of Open vSwitch.
    IBM, Big Switch and NEC have also launched virtual switching
    technology that uses SDN with centralized controllers to gain a broader
    view of both physical and virtual resources, as well as to provision
    network segments on demand. In these strategies, an OpenFlow
    controller manages flows within the overlay network, but also
    communicates out to the physical network.
    IBM offers the Distributed Virtual Switch 5000v, which lives on a
    VMware hypervisor and creates tunnels between endpoints across the
    underlying network infrastructure. IBM has its own virtual network
    overlay strategy, using distributed virtual switches deployed on
    hypervisor hosts to create tunnels between endpoints across the
    underlying network infrastructure.
    NECs ProgrammableFlow 1000 vswitch, which works in a Microsoft
    environment, also combines an OpenFlow controller and virtual
    switches. Together, the technology maps all of the VMs and enables
    network provisioning for migration, making sure QoS and ACL policy
    can be applied throughout.
    Similarly, BigSwitchs Big Virtual Switch, works with the Big Network
    Controller, to gain a view of the entire virtual and physical network and
    to provision network segments on demand, applying and managing
    forwarding policy across virtual and physical environments.

    The Big Virtual Switch integrates or communicates at the virtual edge


    with any physical switch from one of Big Switchs vendor partners,
    allowing for policy to stretch across physical and virtual networks.
    Big Switch is promoting its Big Virtual Switch as a solution that
    integrates the virtual edge without undoing the physical network
    beneath. Some of the more siloed solutions that are focused on network
    virtualization only, rather than SDN, leave you an environment where
    the work of building the virtual networks can undo the network
    engineering underneath, said Dan Hersey, a network virtualization
    product manager at Big Switch.
    Overlay strategies in which the controller doesnt talk to the physical
    network can lead to network conflicts, along with complexities in
    debugging and troubleshooting, he said. These overlay networks require
    software gateways and processing servers that cannot be configured
    without duplicating the underlying physical network control plane
    configuration. This leads to increased costs and troubleshooting
    complexity, Hersey said.
    About the author
    David Geer writes about security and enterprise technology for
    international trade and business publications.
    This was last published in March 2013

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