Nuage Networks and Citrix Collaborate for Application Delivery with SDN and OpenStack

The application landscape is changing. Enterprise organizations are deploying complex scale-out applications. These applications have many components that have to work together. An application architecture can include a legacy component that resides on a mainframe, it can have services-oriented architecture components, and there can be new micro services that perform specialized tasks. The network infrastructure is changing in response. Most applications run on a virtual server infrastructure. Network services are being migrated to virtualized network infrastructure. Network services now exist as virtual appliances. Everything needs to interact, from the application components to the virtual network services. To connect the components, virtual networks like the Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Platform (VSP) have been developed and organizations are using these to connect the pieces of the virtualized applications and the virtualized network components together.

Making the Transition to an Open SDN Architecture in the Enterprise Private Cloud

Enterprise IT is moving away from acting as siloed service organizations to aligning with the business’ goals to help their organizations enhance their business agility, value and customer experience. Many of these organizations are moving to a cloud computing model to achieve these goals, but they haven’t determined the best strategy for making this transition.
Transitioning to the cloud will help these organizations accelerate innovation and business agility by emphasizing a number of important factors.  Adaptability is one.  Seamless scale, both upward and downward, is another. Network intelligence that will provide proactive resource optimization is a third.

To make this transition, organizations need the right infrastructure, and they must be prepared to answer questions regarding SDN, orchestration, security, network protocols and many other issues.

These are addressed by two application-aware architectures for the enterprise private cloud:

1.    Juniper Networks’ open SDN architecture

2.    A proprietary programmable architecture that requires investment in a centralized controller and application-aware switch combination.

Connecting Islands of Resources in an SDN Data Center

Application Agility is Critical
Organizations are rolling out new applications that they use to drive the business. These applications are virtualized. They are increasingly distributed, dynamic and they can span locations. They connect employees, customers and the supply chain. They make employees more productive, help customers to engage with the business and facilitate better inventory management. They also provide timely business intelligence.  This means revenue to the organization. Time to deploy is critical. Organizations need to be agile when it comes to deploying new applications.

The problem is that the network is an obstacle. Due to the complexity of configuring the network speed of deployment is an issue. There are so many things that need to be configured. You need to configure route mapping, port mapping, VLAN mapping, QOS, NAT, ACLs and the list goes on.  The networking side hasn’t changed since it was invented decades ago. It takes weeks to configure the network connections that are needed when you deploy an application.

Organizations have been using server virtualization for years to overcome the limitations of physical server virtualization. When you have to deploy a physical server it could take weeks from the time you first knew you needed it until it was up and running. Now provisioning virtual servers only takes minutes. With virtualized servers we realized agility and resilience and improved physical server utilization. We need the same type of benefits for the network. You can’t let the network get in the way when you need to move fast and gain the advantages of new applications. Organizations are looking for ways to provision the network work quickly.

Simplifying the Network is the Key to Improving Application Performance

In order ensure application performance and increase productivity across the organization while trying to keep budgets under control Enterprise organizations have been increasingly evaluating and implementing a series of new technologies for the past few years. These technologies hold out the promise of increasing the agility of new application rollouts that deliver game changing services, and meeting the needs of the organization to understand the business and make timely and well informed decisions as well as meeting the changing needs of the organization as they adapt to moves, consolidations and mergers.

The first one of these technologies is server virtualization which is now reaching the middle of the bell curve of the adoption cycle with more than half of organizations at the pervasive or fully virtualized stage according to IDG. The next is cloud computing where investments are up over last year, and the year before, with private cloud now as the preferred model over public cloud. Lowering TCO is a top selling point for both private & public cloud. Cloud solves challenges around business continuity and disaster recovery by providing resources on demand, often in a pay as you go model. It also becomes more popular as organizations begin to see it as an alternative to large capital expenditures for infrastructure.

A Practical Look at SDN Software and Hardware Considerations

The Opportunity for SDN
Software Defined Networking represents the biggest change to the network in many years. What makes SDN interesting is the transformation that it can enable. Businesses are looking for more control over their applications on the network. SDN promises to deliver agility and simplification in the network to support applications. With SDN, the network becomes more efficient and agile, and an enabler for delivering on business goals for application performance. As a buyer, it’s understandably difficult to separate the hype from the reality. I’d like to suggest a few points to consider as you map out your SDN strategy.

Implications for the Network
Network operators still need to design, provision, manage, operate and troubleshoot their network. While SDN offers greater simplicity, operators have to continue current network management functions and, at the same time, become educated on  SDN developments. With SDN, new protocols and technologies will emerge. The investments you make in your network infrastructure today need to be flexible enough to see you through the next several years. There will be a hybrid model in the network. This means a mix of overlay technology and physical networks – and the demarcation points will depend on use cases for those overlays and the ability for the physical network to support these overlays. Network operators will have to understand the relationship between the two and be able to design networks appropriately with the right on-ramps and off-ramps. As the management of network shifts away from CLI and more towards orchestration platforms, the network interfaces and integration points (APIs) need to be clearly defined and deliver automation and agility.

Getting on the Path to SDN with Juniper Networks

A number of IT trends—including the consumerization of IT, cloud computing, and social media— present significant opportunities for businesses to improve productivity. Before adopting these technologies, however, organizations try to fully understand the impact they will have on the underlying infrastructure and, more specifically, the network environment, since it is a critical enabler for all of these services. As a result organizations are looking to innovation in the network to meet their business needs.

Trends Impacting the Network
As organizations continue to innovate and expand their virtualized environments beyond the simple benefits of consolidation to a more agile infrastructure, they have begun to build out private clouds. These agile IT environments enable business managers to rapidly turn up new services to meet unexpected demand or requirements. However, this abstraction layer can create blind spots in the infrastructure and make meeting compliance requirements difficult.

Social media applications present another challenge as the explosion in the number of network-connected devices opens up avenues to new applications and collaboration tools. Well known applications such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter often blur the lines between business and personal usage and video create demands on the network. The question is how to ensure performance, while protecting data ensuring privacy.

Juniper’s Vision for SDN Enables Network Innovation

The importance of the network continues to grow and innovation in the network needs to support new businesses models, and drive social and economic change. SDN will help address challenges currently faced by the network as it evolves to support business applications. It is worthwhile to step back and determine what the big-picture problem is to be solved. SDN is about adding value and solving a problem that has not been solved. It is about helping network operators to combine best-of-breed networking equipment with SDN control to facilitate cost effective networks that provide new business opportunities is key to Juniper’s strategy. I’d like to elaborate on a few key points.

Juniper’s Vision For The New Network And Software-Defined Networking Are Aligned
I’ve talked in previous blogs about Juniper’s New Network Platform Architecture. Juniper is delivering the New Network to increase the rate of innovation, streamline network operating costs through automation, and reduce overall capital expenses. Legacy networks have grown large and complex. This has stifled innovation and made networks costly to build and maintain. Both the New Network and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are about removing complexity, treating the network itself as a platform, and shifting the emphasis from maintenance to innovation.

SDN provides an abstracted, logical view of the network with externalized software-based control and reduced control points for better network control and simplified network operations. Juniper’s vision for SDN includes bi-directional interaction between the network and applications and a real-time feedback loop to ensure an optimal outcome for all elements and a predictable experience for users. This capability is transparent allowing customers to augment their existing network infrastructures to be SDN-enabled.