Big Cloud Fabric 2.5 Supports VMWare, Dell Open Networking

Big Cloud Fabric, the networking fabric developed by Big Switch Networks, was initially launched in the third quarter of 2014 with the goal of replacing legacy “box-by-box” networking with software defined networking. Big Switch Network's latest announcement says that its fabric has now reached version 2.5, and with the new version has come a number of new features that should appeal to all its enterprise customers.

In its announcement, Big Switch Networks speaks about the relatively new industry term “hyperscale networking.” A hyperscale network is one that can respond, at a moment's notice, to any server's need for more short-term memory, storage, bandwidth, or any other networking assets. The Big Cloud Fabric platform achieves that instant type of response by operating in tandem with the VMWare vCenter virtualization software. The Fabric controller uses vCenter directly to allow users to provision virtual networks and to have a central dashboard where they can monitor their virtual machines.

Another new feature within version 2.5 is Big Cloud Fabric's support for Dell Open Networking switches that handle hardware and software disaggregation. Furthermore, Fabric now supports many hypervisor environments such as VMWare vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, and Citrix XenServer and can support both CloudStack and Citrix CloudPlatform. Alongside its original support for OpenStack, this gives users a number of choices when it comes to cloud control and data center operations.

Of course, Big Cloud Fabric got its start with OpenStack. In October 2014, it declared its “OpenStack compatible” benchmark by integrating that popular cloud control software, bare metal Ethernet switch hardware, and a software defined networking controller. The expansion of support since that time has given Douglas Murray, the CEO of Big Switch Networks, cause to predict that his company will see even more adoption of its product in the future.

“Our initial customers deployed Big Cloud Fabric on OpenStack. With the remarkable traction we've seen since the product's introduction, customers have challenged us to expand to other use cases, topologies, hypervisors, and orchestration environments,” Murray said. “Our support for VMware and Dell Open Network Switches will significantly expand the adoption and addressable market of Big Cloud Fabric.”

Edited by Maurice Nagle