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Big Switch Networks announced late last year, that Big Cloud Fabric™ (BCF) is now Nutanix Ready AHV with integrated networking designation, enabling physical network automation through integration with Nutanix Acropolis through Prism Element.

Big Switch is transforming data centers by leveraging public cloud constructs as first principles for architecting enterprise private clouds. BCF is a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)-based logical networking fabric, optimized for Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, due to its native integration and network automation for HCI operations. With the BCF and AHV solution, DevOps teams can now experience the same agile operational workflows, automation, and simplicity of network provisioning as experienced in the public cloud, in their on-prem private clouds. 

Zero-Touch Networking with BCF

With BCF, networks are able to operate at the speed Nutanix clusters. Advanced network automation and real-time visibility remove bottlenecks typically experienced with traditional network designs that are manual, switch-by-switch architectures, based on traditional CLI commands. The BCF Controller acts as a single point of integration with Nutanix Acropolis through Prism Element to offer Enterprise-VPC (E-VPC) logical networking to provide the following unique benefits:

• Automation: Automatic Bootstrapping of Nutanix AHV Hosts, Automatic AHV Host Detection and Fabric Admission, Automated L2 Networking for Nutanix AHV E-VPC, Automated Distributed Logical Routing
• Visibility: Nutanix E-VPC Endpoint Visibility — BCF Nutanix Prism page displays information of clusters, hosts, virtual switches and the endpoints in a Nutanix E-VPC based on data provided by Prism to BCF
• Troubleshooting: VM-to-VM traffic visibility for a Nutanix E-VPC across the entire leaf-spine fabric can be visually displayed on the BCF controller, this level of visibility to traffic, which cannot be achieved with box-by-box networking, helps rapidly determine if an application issue is network-related versus compute-related
• Analytics: BCF’s advanced fabric analytics for a Nutanix E-VPC captures VM-related information (name, creation time, pNIC info, port-groups), and time-series of events related to VMs

Big Cloud Fabric Delivers VPC-style Networking For Nutanix Enterprise Cloud; Announces Enterprise-ready Solution Bundle

BCF is the only networking fabric to support multi-orchestration environments via a logical E-VPC architecture, which enables multiple orchestrators to operate within logically isolated domains while sharing a common physical networking fabric. Logical E-VPCs are ideal for use cases such as rapid CI/CD driven application deployments, multi-tenant managed service environments to support varied workloads, and dev/test private clouds. By eliminating the need for dedicated infrastructure per orchestrator, BCF’s E-VPC provides dramatic improvements in application deployment and service enablement. Analogous with server consolidation, BCF E-VPCs offers a consolidated physical network for multiple different private cloud orchestrators.

BCF reduces networking TCO by deploying on industry-standard open switch hardware from Dell EMC Open Networking, Edgecore, and HPE Altoline. 

Nutanix AHV Automated Fabric Bundle

This solution bundle offers plug and play convenience to rapidly order, install, and configure a fully integrated hyper-converged infrastructure. The bundle is ideal for customers interested in piloting an integrated solution, without the need for network or storage experts or months’ worth of training. Any virtual infrastructure or storage administrator familiar with vSphere, and/or AHV, will be able to easily understand and oversee deployment. For more on the Nutanix AHV Automated Fabric Bundle from EPS Global: https://www.epsglobal.com/lp/bsn-nutanix-bundle

In addition to the Nutanix Ready AHV with integrated networking designation, BCF has been validated Nutanix Ready Core for networking and Big Switch is a member of the Nutanix technology alliance partner program, Nutanix Elevate. All products featured in Nutanix Ready have completed verification testing. Nutanix Ready showcases select trusted solutions designed to meet a variety of business needs, by demonstrating mutual product compatibility and interoperability.

Supporting quotes

“Successful data center transformation necessitates infrastructure that is built with cloud architectural principles and delivers cloud-style speed, simplicity and economics. Both Big Switch and Nutanix have embraced cloud principles as first principles to architect enterprise private clouds and hence our partnership is a natural one,” said Prashant Gandhi, Chief Product Officer, Big Switch Networks. “The AWS-style network simplicity and automation of Big Cloud Fabric, based on VPC on-prem technology, delivers the best networking solution for Nutanix AHV, bringing DevOps teams unprecedented cloud-speed agility for any application.”

“We are pleased to see Big Cloud Fabric certified for Nutanix AHV,” said Sridhar Devarapalli, General Manager of Networking and Cloud Services, Nutanix. “BCF is a highly complementary networking solution, offering automation of network provisioning and seamless integration with Acropolis. The solution’s Enterprise-VPC everywhere approach empowers our engineering teams to manage their networking needs for their environments. Operators also benefit from full visibility of the HCI stack – compute, storage and network – for easy operation of Nutanix deployments at scale.”

“EPS Global is excited to be partnering with Big Switch and Nutanix to bring the Nutanix-Ready Interconnect Fabric Bundle to market. The bundle includes best of breed open hardware from our long-term hardware partners Finisar and Edgecore Networks, said Alan Fagan, Director of Sales North America, EPSGlobal. ”We have the logistics and technical resources in place to help resellers get this integrated solution into end users’ hands quickly and seamlessly and we are looking forward to contributing to the success of this program.”

Resources

Tech Demo: BCF Nutanix AHV Integration: https://bit.ly/2wh9QH2

Customer Case Study: Nutanix IT: https://bit.ly/2BFqp00 

Webinar: Cloud-First Networking Approach for Enterprise Cloud Design: https://bit.ly/2QsnfFc

Solution Brief: Cloud-First Networking for Enterprise Cloud: https://bit.ly/2BNMNV0

Blog: Big Cloud Fabric, the Ideal SDN Fabric for Nutanix HCI: https://bit.ly/2F6S9tl

Where to Nutanix AHV Automated Fabric Bundle https://www.epsglobal.com/lp/bsn-nutanix-bundle