VMware Teams Up With HP, Dell, Juniper, Others on NSX Platform

By Jeffrey Burt

VMware created NSX by bringing together its own vCloud Network and Security technology with Nicira’s Network Virtualization Platform. The technology will enable organizations to do with network virtualization what they have done with server virtualization—treat their physical resources as a pool that can be used on demand.

The companies are integrating HP’s Virtual Applications Networks SDN Controller with NSX to offer unified automation and management of their physical and virtual data center resources. In addition, HP’s new FlexFabric 5930 switch extends network virtualization to servers through built-in intelligence based on VMware’s VXLAN technology.

The switch, designed for cloud environments that are highly virtualized, offers twice the density and greater energy efficiency than competitive products, and can help bridge the communication gap between physical hardware and virtual machines.

Juniper is expanding its partnership with VMware across a number of areas, including greater routing support for VXLAN. In addition, the company said its EX Series and QFX Series core, aggregation and access switching platforms will offer VMware’s NSX L2 Gateway Services.

Brocade, with its VCS Gateway for VMware NSX, will help organizations unify the physical and virtual components in their data centers.

Arista is offering three new applications on its Extensible Operating System (EOS), including OpenWorkload. Arista’s EOS switches integrate with NSX to offer hardware-based gateway services for non-virtualized servers and existing VLANs. The company also is integrating with OpenStack and other orchestration platforms for such tasks as automated provisioning and workload visibility.

Cumulus is now offering hardware Layer 2 gateway services on gear running its Cumulus Linux operating system, which helps extend virtual networks to physical workloads. In addition, Cumulus is integrating its technology with NSX.

Palo Alto officials say their next-generation security platform will integrate with NSX, which will help organizations realize the operational agility and lower costs they hope to get from virtualization technology. The company is demonstrating the integration at VMworld.

Citrix and VMware tend to be rivals in the data center. However, Citrix announced NetScaler Control Center for VMware, which will enable organizations that are using NSX to automatically deploy and configure NetScaler application delivery capabilities in their networks.

F5’s integration efforts will mean that organizations using its Big-IQ Cloud solution and NSX will be able to deploy applications services—including security and acceleration—with network virtualization technologies.

Silver Peak is integrating its Agility acceleration software with NSX, which will give businesses point-and-click traffic redirection and workload optimization from one virtual machine to another in NSX virtualized networks.

McAfee’s Network Security Platform will integrate with NSX Services Composer, enabling the automated deployment of security visibility, reporting and protection against network-based threats. It is optimized for virtualized environments:

Symantec’s anti-virus/anti-malware services are delivered as virtual appliances for virtualized data centers by the NSX platform through its Service Composer feature.

TrendMicro has been working with VMware since 2009 to bring security to virtualized environments, and the integration of its Deep Security with NSX is the latest step in the partnership.

The company is integrating Nexpose with NSX, enabling real-time visibility into the security risks of virtual environments by performing vulnerability scans without requiring a network connection between the scan engine and virtual machine.