Aviatrix, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, unveiled a “Cloud Native Networking” solution that combines a software-defined network controller and software gateways to enable businesses to scale out virtual private clouds (VPCs) with VLAN-like segmentation of cloud instances and policy-based security. The idea is to make it easier to provision and manage VPCs that span public, private and hybrid clouds. The Aviatrix software provisions, orchestrates and connects secure tunnels across regions, eliminating manual configuration and reducing administrative complexity of cloud-to-cloud, user-to-cloud and site-to-cloud connectivity.
The upcoming Aviatrix 2.0 software, which will be generally available in June, enables virtual cloud provisioning for AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Aviatrix could be used to link and manage resources in multiple clouds. The company said it has already established close partnerships with the big three cloud providers.
The solution consists of the Aviatrix web-portal-based controller, and one or more Aviatrix gateways deployed on the cloud or on-premises. The controller is the central point of configuration, orchestration, and monitoring for all functions and cloud services, while the gateway manages each VPC and performs encryption/decryption, packet forwarding, policy enforcements and logging capabilities. VLAN-like segmentation helps maximize application security by ensuring that each application is fully isolated and protected.
Aviatrix 2.0 key capabilities:
- Encrypted Peering – Inter-region and inter-cloud encrypted peering lets enterprises use AWS and other cloud vendors for data replication, disaster recovery and high-availability.
- Simplified hybrid deployments – Utilizing mixed layer 2 and layer 3 technology, enterprises can extend private LANs to public clouds within minutes, without additional hardware and any changes to existing network infrastructure.
- Enterprise-class OpenVPN for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud – OpenVPN is the open source industry standard for secure remote access with the broadest range of devices. Built on OpenVPN, Aviatrix 2.0 enables user profile-based access controls that dynamically enforce security policies at the network perimeter; Multi-factor authentication with Active Directory, Duo Security, Google or Okta. Geo-aware OpenVPN access connects users to the nearest cloud region.
- Cloud network visibility – Aviatrix 2.0 includes a centralized management console, user activity monitoring and routing diagnostics, as well as event logging to Elasticsearch, Sumo Logic and Splunk, and remote syslog server.
- Expanded cloud platform support – Aviatrix Cloud Native Networking Software is now expanded to include Google Cloud, AWS GovCloud (US), Azure Resource Manager, and Azure China. Aviatrix 2.0 provides additional security by adding encryption over private, dedicated physical links such as Azure ExpressRoute and AWS Direct Connect.
- Multi-account support – Aviatrix simplifies the connectivity between multiple user accounts to enable enterprises to have cost controls and accountability.
“Cloud native networking is designed to make networking as dynamic and disposable as compute and storage. Using virtualized versions from traditional network equipment vendors in the cloud is not the answer,” said Sherry Wei, Aviatrix co-founder and CTO. “We are focused on removing constraints and limitations on network design for cloud architecture in order to empower enterprises to realize the full potential of the cloud, whether public, private or hybrid and regardless of VPC numbers or locations.”
Aviatrix also announced the appointment of Steven Mih as chief executive officer. Mih most recently served as the SVP of worldwide field operations at Mesosphere, starting in early 2015. Prior to Mesosphere, Mih served as the SVP of worldwide sales at Couchbase, the fastest growing startup in the NoSQL database field.
