Big Switch Networks unveiled its Big Cloud Fabric 3.0 architecture based on SDN, inspired by hyperscale cloud networking deployments, and featuring an elastic pricing structure.
Big Switch’s architecture features an external SDN controller, advanced fabric design and open networking (bare metal) hardware. The new Big Cloud Fabric 3.0 brings deeper integration for both VMware and OpenStack environments, providing organizations with greater networking automation, resiliency, and simplicity.
Specifically, Big Cloud Fabric 3.0 delivers a unified physical + virtual SDN fabric for deploying resilient OpenStack clouds. Big Switch’s Switch Light software is deployed on open networking switches (Switch Light OS) as well as on virtualized KVM servers (Switch Light VX). Its OpenStack Neutron plugin for L2/L3 networking provides resiliency necessary for production-grade OpenStack deployments. The Big Cloud Fabric 3.0 Controller acts as the single pane of glass for provisioning, troubleshooting, visibility and analytics of the entire physical and virtual network environment. This accelerates application deployment, simplifies operational workflows and provides immediate root-cause analysis when application performance issues arise.
Big Switch is offering several starter kits, pre-configured with switch hardware, cables, support and Big Cloud Fabric software for OpenStack, starting at $49k.
In addition, Big Cloud Fabric 3.0 deepens its integration across multiple VMware products in support of the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC). This includes natively supporting advanced network automation and deep visibility for vSphere environments, now including vSphere 6; as well as support for VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIO).
Big Monitoring Fabric (formerly Big Tap) is a next-generation network packet broker (NPB) that leverages SDN principles and Open Networking switches to provide scale-out data center monitoring at 30% of the cost of traditional NPBs. Popular customer use cases for Big Monitoring Fabric include: Pervasive monitoring, remote monitoring, mobile/LTE monitoring & DMZ / Inline security. Innovations include support for scale-out and low cost monitoring services such as de-duplication and packet modification with an x86 service node, with the Big Monitoring Fabric controller acting as the single pane of glass for both monitoring fabric and service nodes for simplified operational experience.
Big Switch is also introducing a hyperscale-inspired elastic pricing model to provide customers with flexibility, reduced cost and a pay-per-use consumption model for Hardware, Software and support. For the same CapEx amount used to purchase the SDN fabric — physical switches, software and support — customers can elect to receive twice the capacity with an “Elastic SDN Fabric” at no additional cost. For example, for the price of a 4 rack configuration, Big Switch would ship 8 racks of SDN fabric. The excess capacity of Elastic SDN Fabric is consumed on an as-utilized basis at $599/switch/month.
- Big Switch recently announced global expansion and year-over-year growth of 365%. The company now has customer wins across the US, APAC and EMEA regions, in verticals that include financial services, government, telecom service providers, tech and higher education. Customers include the U.S. Federal Government, Intuit, Clemson University, CleanSafeCloud, and U2 Cloud, a cloud service provider (CSP), 5 of the top 10 telcos in the world, a leading global credit card company, multiple global financial services firms, media companies, and a leading virtualization provider.
