VMware boosting security, load balancing, analytics and intelligence

VMware has further new features to its core networking software that will let clients more securely control cloud application traffic running on containers, virtual machines or bare metal.

At its VMworld event, the company announced a new version of the company’s NSX networking software with backing for the cloud-based advanced load balancer technology it recently learned from Avi Networks.

The load balancer is included in VMware vRealize Network Insight 5.0 and tied to NSX Intelligence software that lets customers improve network availability and performance in physical and virtual networks. The load balancer comprises a web application analytics and firewall features to support clients securely manage and control traffic.

VMware introduce in July with the plan to punch up its data-centre network-virtualization capabilities by adding Avi’s load balancing, application, analytics and delivery technology to NSX. Avi’s incorporation with VMware NSX delivers an application-services fabric that synchronizes with the NSX controller to provide automated, elastic load balancing including real-time analytics for applications deployed in a software-defined network environment. The Avi technology also scales monitor and reconfigures application services in real time in response to changing performance requirements.

NSX-T Data Center software is beset at administrations looking to support multivendor cloud-native applications, bare-metal workloads, hypervisor the growing and environments hybrid worlds and multi-cloud. The software offers a range of services layer 2 to Layer 7 for workloads running on all types of infrastructure, containers, virtual machines, physical servers and both public and private clouds. NSX-T is the underpinning technology for VMware’s overarching Virtual Cloud Network portfolio that offers a communications software layer to connect everything from the data centre to cloud and edge.

Now users can distribute workloads uniformly across network reliability, improving capacity and efficiency.

Speaking at the event, a VMware client said VMware NSX-T Data Centre is serving the company secure workloads at a granular level with micro-segmentation, and to basically re-think network design. “We are looking to develop apps as quickly as possible and use NSX to move faster and do automation,” said Andrew Hrycaj, principal network engineer at IHS Markit – a business information provider headquartered in London.

NSX also supports IT manage a common security policy across different platforms, from containers, to the public cloud with Azure and AWS, to on-prem, simplifying operations and helping with regulatory compliance, while fostering a pervasive security strategy, Hrycaj said.

Networking software vendor Apstra got into the NSX act by announcing it had more deeply integrated the Apstra Operating System (AOS) with NSX.

AOS includes a tighter operational interoperability and design between the underlying physical network and software-defined overlay networks with a solution that liberates customers from being locked into any specific network hardware vendor, said Mansour Karam, CEO and founder of Apstra.

At VMworld the company announced version 2.5 of NSX which includes a distributed, analytics engine called NSX Intelligence that VMware says will help eliminate blind spots to reduce security risk and accelerate security-incident remediation through visualization and deep insight into every flow across the entire data centre. NSX-T 2.5, also introduces a new deployment and operational approach VMware calls Native Cloud Enforced mode.