Pluribus Touts Network Visibility for Cloud-Native Applications

Pluribus Touts Network Visibility for Cloud-Native Applications - Supports 400G Switch

February 2, 2022

Pluribus Networks made release 7 of its Linux-based Netvisor ONE network operating system (OS) and Adaptive Cloud Fabric SDN software. Just off the heels of a $20M investment from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, Pluribus continues to innovate with the seventh generation of its industry-leading cloud networking solutions.

High-bandwidth, distributed and containerized cloud native applications such as AI/ML, edge video processing, augmented reality and more, are moving beyond the realm of hyperscalers and into a wider range of enterprise, service providers and government institutions. As the broader market builds out distributed cloud infrastructure to scale these cloud-native applications, container-to-container connectivity becomes increasingly complex and difficult to troubleshoot.

With release 7 of its Netvisor ONE OS and Adaptive Cloud Fabric, Pluribus is directly integrating three new fabric capabilities that will empower NetOps teams to better troubleshoot, optimize and secure cloud data center workloads: FlowTracker, KubeTracker and a Virtualized Network Packet Broker. The new solutions provide hardware accelerated, wirespeed performance and, unlike other visibility and packet broker solutions, are highly cost-effective and simple to deploy because they do not require the deployment of additional expensive external hardware such as TAPS, TAP aggregators and packet brokers.

Cloud-native applications are also consuming more East-West bandwidth inside and across cloud data centers. With release 7, Pluribus is addressing this growing bandwidth by unveiling support for a high performance 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch from its partner, Dell Technologies: the Dell PowerSwitch Z9432F-ON.

“With the dramatic rise in cloud native workloads, pervasive network visibility has become critical to delivering best-in-class customer experiences. Netvisor ONE release 7 brings the next level of visibility to cloud networks, without the expense of external monitoring hardware. NetOps teams finally have the tools they need to dramatically improve application availability, speed troubleshooting and hold confident conversations with their DevOps counterparts,” said Kumar Srikantan, CEO, Pluribus Networks.

“We have simplified our network operations, increased our agility and achieved continuous improvement for application availability with our network based on the Pluribus Netvisor ONE OS and the Adaptive Cloud Fabric integrated with the Dell PowerSwitches. As we continue to deploy new applications for our customers, we look forward to the enhanced capabilities from Netvisor R7 including 400GbE support and features such as KubeTracker that empower our network operations team with the visibility they need to ensure the performance of cloud native workloads,” said Curtis Melton, vice president, Interop Technologies.

Comprehensive Network Visibility and Performance Monitoring Solution

Pluribus FlowTracker: provides integrated wirespeed application-level network flow telemetry for every flow-type that can traverse the Adaptive Cloud Fabric including TCP, UDP, ICMP and infrastructure services (DNS, DHCP, NTP). Pluribus FlowTracker takes advantage of enhanced network telemetry based on Broadcom’s Trident3 and Trident4 programmable Ethernet switch chips that are built into data center switches, eliminating the need for additional hardware.

Flow-based network monitoring makes it easier for NetOps teams to quickly discover, troubleshoot and root cause network issues. Pluribus Networks’ optional UNUM Insight Analytics software can be paired with FlowTracker to provide up to 30 days of stored flow metadata, rich graphical dashboards and a powerful search function.

Pluribus KubeTracker: in conjunction with FlowTracker, KubeTracker is the industry’s first solution to provide NetOps teams with full visibility into East-West traffic flows between containers. KubeTracker enables NetOps teams to correlate containers with applications, on which hosts they reside and how they are connected to the fabric, allowing for a full understanding of distributed cloud native applications.

As containers are ephemeral and highly distributed, they drive a complex web of East-West traffic flows that need to be tracked over time for proper application and network performance monitoring. Until now, NetOps teams have not had visibility into these flows, making it difficult to verify application availability and network performance for containerized workloads. KubeTracker is an innovative new solution built into the Netvisor ONE OS and the Adaptive Cloud Fabric that empowers NetOps teams to quickly identify and troubleshoot any application availability issues, including going back in time even after containers have been spun down, enabling them to determine if network performance was or was not at fault.

Pluribus Virtualized Packet Broker Service: in another industry first, Pluribus is introducing a virtualized packet broker function that runs at wirespeed, as a service, across the same Adaptive Cloud Fabric that carries production cloud data center traffic. The Pluribus Virtualized Packet Broker is software-defined and can be instantly deployed fabric-wide to aggregate, filter and replicate any flow from anywhere in the fabric and steer it to one or multiple monitoring and security tools.

This new fabric service is cost-efficient, as NetOps and SecOps teams are no longer required to build expensive overlay TAP and packet broker networks. The solution is also uniquely able to span multiple geo-distributed data centers, including edge data centers which typically cannot accommodate an expensive packet broker, thus ensuring pervasive visibility across every location in a data center cloud fabric.

New 400 GbE Open Networking Switch Now Supported By Netvisor ONE OS

Dell EMC PowerSwitch Z9432F-ON: the compact Z9432F-ON provides 32 ports of 400GbE in QSFP56-DD form factor or 128 ports of 100GbE and also supports 10/25/50GbE port speeds in a 1RU design. Pluribus Netvisor ONE OS is tested and certified to run on this platform and can be ordered directly through Dell and then easily loaded onto the switch via the open network install environment (ONIE).

“We have always seen Pluribus as an industry innovator and applaud the way they creatively take advantage of Broadcom silicon features. We are pleased to see them leverage the Trident4 Ethernet programmable switch series, and support new, high-density 400GbE switches, while delivering pervasive network visibility,” said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom.

“Since its inception, the 400GbE market has been driven by Hyperscalers with almost all 400 GbE ports being consumed by the top cloud service providers. We see the broader market start to adopt 400 GbE at the end of 2022 with a more meaningful volume starting in 2023. Pluribus’ timing for introducing support of 400GbE is appropriate and addresses this transition in the market,” said Sameh Boujelbene, senior director, Data Center and Campus Ethernet Switch Market Research, Dell‘Oro Group.