Virtualization Platform

I was asked the following question today by a vendor about what the ICN’s position as it relates to Network Virtualization and Software-Defined Networking (SDN)?

My short answer was “Network virtualization, Software-Defined Networking (SDN), and VMware to the ICN are related technologies that play a significant role in the ICN when it comes to our facilities and cloud computing environment. In the context of network virtualization, VMware is used to create and maintain our virtual networks, and SDN principles are applied to manage and automate these networks. In tandem this allows for greater flexibility, scalability, and efficiency.

For the sake of this article here is a brief explanation of my comment above. 

Network Virtualization:

Network virtualization allows the ICN to divide network services from the underlying hardware.  This provides several benefits which are:

• Isolation: Create different virtual networks that operate independently and partitions services by isolating facilities allowing for additional security.
• Resource Optimization: Virtualization dynamically allocates virtual networks as needed to allow storage and compute to be optimized.
• Flexibility: Networks are provisioned and managed independently making them more flexible

Software-Defined Networking (SDN):

SDN elements allow the ICN to control and manage network devices. This is done by having applications/services that manage network's traffic in real-time based on network conditions and policies.

VMware:

VMware provides the ICN with a virtualization platform. ICN utilizes server virtualization (VMware vSphere) and network virtualization (VMware NSX). VMware NSX is our network virtualization and security platform that enables the ICN to create and provide virtual networks and services that are cost efficient and makes managing networks easier.