Pluribus Networks announced its vision and
architecture for Unified Cloud Networking, featuring the Pluribus Unified Cloud
Fabric. This industry-first architecture enables a unified networking model
across distributed clouds and across switches and server-based data processing
units (DPUs) with zero-trust distributed security, built-in automation and
pervasive visibility. Cloud operators, including enterprises, cloud service
providers and communication service providers now have a solution that enables
them to evolve smoothly to a new cloud networking architecture and realize
enhanced security, dramatically reduced complexity, lower total cost and
increased agility to safely accelerate their businesses at cloud speed.
Pluribus also announced its collaboration with industry
leader NVIDIA to enable a core aspect of the Unified Cloud Networking
architecture. Pluribus has ported its proven Netvisor ONE OS, widely deployed
in data center switches around the globe, to the NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPU, which offloads,
accelerates and isolates data center infrastructure tasks, enabling the
Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric to extend across both switches and DPUs. This
solution leverages the full power of the NVIDIA BlueField hardware accelerators
and NVIDIA
DOCA, the software development framework that powers BlueField.
Initial use cases for the architecture include software defined networking
(SDN)-automated unified network fabrics with distributed security services,
including microsegmentation, distributed firewalls and pervasive network
visibility. Registrations for Early Field Trials (EFT), which start on May 1st,
2022, are now open at https://www.pluribusnetworks.com/EFT.
Cloud network operators of all types recognize the need to
move to a new, more highly distributed networking and zero-trust security
architecture to address increasing cybersecurity risks, while also transforming
their cloud networks to become as agile, highly available and simple to operate
as the hyperscale public clouds. Pluribus solutions built on the Pluribus
Unified Cloud Fabric, the next generation of the company's award-winning
Adaptive Cloud Fabric, enable cloud network operators to overcome obstacles in
their current environment and deficiencies in existing solutions, so they can
rapidly move toward this goal.
Attributes of the Pluribus Unified Cloud Networking
architecture and Unified Cloud Fabric include:
- Unified and simplified
cloud networks. Pluribus eliminates fragmented networks with separate
operating models, enables smooth migration toward the new distributed
architecture and lowers operational complexity and cost by delivering a
consistent network operations model across underlay (physical) and overlay
(virtual) networks, across switches and servers, and across heterogeneous,
distributed clouds.
- Distributed security
without compromises. Pluribus enables network security to be distributed to
the server level, including fine-grained microsegmentation and distributed
stateful firewalls. Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric enables substantially better
performance and lower total cost of ownership compared to hardware appliances
or purely software-based solutions.
- Pervasive visibility.
Pluribus delivers built-in application-aware visibility and analytics for every
application and every traffic flow, improving proactive trouble detection and
resolution while eliminating the extra cost and incomplete coverage of separate
monitoring networks.
- SDN-enabled automation.
Pluribus solutions incorporate industry-leading controllerless SDN automation to
enable network operations teams to manage highly-distributed networks with
thousands of DPUs and other network endpoints, while avoiding the challenges of
integrating third-party automation tools or building and maintaining
do-it-yourself (DIY) scripts.
- Accelerated SDN on the
host. Running the Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric on the NVIDIA BlueField DPU
extends the power and flexibility of software-defined, hardware-accelerated
networking to every host with a DPU installed.
The Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric is the industry's only
solution that enables cloud operators to transform gracefully to the new,
highly distributed cloud network architecture with built-in security,
visibility and automation, proven mission-critical reliability and radically
simplified operations across distributed cloud networks. Compared to
alternative solutions, Pluribus Unified Cloud Networking can also deliver cost
savings adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in a typical cloud data
center.
"The advancements that Pluribus has made to its architecture
in the past year reinforces that we are truly
the Unified Cloud
Networking company. Pluribus solutions significantly reduce complexity and
enable enterprises and service providers to take full advantage of the
distributed multi-cloud era. I am extremely proud that we've now achieved the
industry's only open, SDN-automated solution that unifies networking across
both data center switches and servers while maintaining security, automation,
visibility and performance." - Kumar Srikantan, CEO, Pluribus Networks
"A new wave of technologies
spanning AI, 5G and virtual worlds is being enabled by next-generation data
centers, driving demand for accelerated computing and next-generation clouds
with software-defined networks. Pluribus' SDN technology running on NVIDIA
BlueField DPUs improves networking performance, security, operational
efficiency and scalability to equip customers to rapidly deploy
state-of-the-art cloud-native applications." - Kevin Dierling, senior vice
president of networking, NVIDIA