Big Virtual Switch

Big Virtual Switch is a data center network virtualization application that runs on the Big Network Controller, a platform for Open Software-Defined Networking (SDN). Big Virtual Switch creates Virtual Network Segments for dynamic workloads to make the network as agile as your other cloud infrastructure. Big Virtual Switch enables customers to realize dramatic increases in automation and business agility, while also achieving dramatic reductions in data center costs resulting from increased virtual machine (VM) density.

Network virtualization before Big Virtual Switch running on Big Network Controller

• Functional limitations drive suboptimal designs
• Static, inflexible networks bar 
VM mobility
• Fixed workload isolation wastes 
compute capacity

Network virtualization after Big Virtual Switch running on Big Network Controller

• Dynamic network segmentation dramatically increases business agility and flexibility
• 25% to 50% improved VM densities drives down costs
• Capex (compute & storage)
• Opex (power & cooling)

Data Center Networking Challenges

Over the last decade, enterprise data center customers have gained tremendous business advantages and cost savings from the introduction of compute virtualization technologies. Virtualization technology delivers reductions in server provisioning time and increased server utilization, creating dramatically higher service levels and reducing server capital expenditures and operating expenses. While great benefits have been realized from migrating from 20 servers per rack to more than 200 VMs per rack, customers are unable to realize the ultimate potential of network virtualization and cloud computing, because the traditional network architecture poses insurmountable barriers.

Conventional data center networks are built using traditional networking platforms that are static, inflexible, and incapable of meeting the dynamic needs of a virtualized cloud data center. While virtual machines can be provisioned in a matter of minutes with user self-provisioning capabilities, network resources are still manually configured with static policies and definitions. So, when users want to create new classes of cloud workloads, the network is the bottleneck, delaying new workload provisioning for days or weeks while manual network provisioning is completed. Also, if the goal is to deploy workloads with mobility across multiple data centers for flexibility and high availability, it becomes a monumental task involving tunnels and layers of manual configuration. In short, traditional network platforms are just not scalable or agile enough to meet user expectations in cloud computing environments.

Data center managers also struggle with the scalability limitations of using conventional L2 and L3 segmentation mechanisms. Large L2 domains segmented with VLANs are subject to the known limitations of the spanning tree protocol, broadcast storms, and 4096 VLAN segment maximums. Yet, driving L3 segmentation all the way down to the rack limits VM mobility and undermines the benefits of cloud computing. The result in either scenario is that compute and storage resources suffer from underutilization from the inflexibility and limitations of conventional L2 and L3 network platforms, and data centers suffer from underutilized compute and storage resources and the associated excess power consumption.

The Solution: Big Virtual Switch

Network virtualization with Big Virtual Switch is the solution to the challenges of traditional data center network architectures. Big Virtual Switch dynamically provisions Virtual Network Segments for cloud workloads, driving dramatic improvements in business agility, increasing VM density, and driving down data center capital costs and operating expenses.

Dynamic Network Provisioning for Cloud Workloads 

Instead of being constrained by device-by-device, static configuration steps required with traditional networking platforms, Big Virtual Switch creates a unified network topology and automatically distributes a forwarding table for each OpenFlow-enabled physical and virtual switch. Network Virtualization with Big Virtual Switch isolates the traffic of data center workloads into Virtual Network Segments according to programmed policies, which enables dynamic workload provisioning and multi-tenant networks. It dynamically updates the Virtual Network Segments based upon real-time changes in workload definitions learned from the network and through integration with third-party applications, including cloud management platforms. Each network segment can support rich network security settings, quality of service policy, and other policies. Big Virtual Switch can also utilize network tunneling to extend Virtual Network Segments across physical data centers or support overlapping address ranges in a multi-tenant environment.

Big Virtual Switch automates network provisioning for large-scale data centers, and eliminates days or weeks of manual tasks associated with traditional move/add/change requests. And Big Virtual Switch can also meet the scalability requirements of the largest data centers, supporting more than 32,000 Virtual Network Segments and more than a 1000 switches.

Dramatic Increase in Resource Utilization

Without the constraints of traditional physical or zone isolation mechanisms, data center operators can now achieve optimal VM density and the associated economic benefits. Big Virtual Switch customer deployments have demonstrated virtual machine density increases of between thirty and fifty percent, reducing server capital expenditures by up to $500,000 per rack for new data center build outs. Similarly, for every rack in a Big Virtual Switch network, the increased virtual machine density reduces operating expenses up to thirty thousand dollars per year based upon reduced power consumption and cooling savings. In addition to the business agility benefits of network virtualization, Big Virtual Switch represents a striking economic value proposition for data center operators.

Ultimate deployment flexibility with Big Virtual Switch

 Openflow Overlay SDN Network

 Pure Openflow SDN Network

Hybrid SDN Network Virtualization