VMware and Cisco Launching 'Extensible LAN for the Cloud'

• By Leila Meyer
• 09/07/11

VMware and Cisco are rolling out enhancements to their combined virtualization solutions, along with improvements to several desktop virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions. The companies have also debuted the new Virtual Extensible Local Area Network (VXLAN) architecture, which forms the basis of a scalable LAN for the cloud.

VXLAN technology enables logical, virtual networks that can be created on demand. For running applications in the cloud, VXLAN can scale to support more than 16 million logical networks, so IT administrators can control each user's access to data and applications with logical networks for each instance of the application. VXLAN also supports applications running in hybrid public/private clouds, while using network resources efficiently. VXLAN has been submitted for standardization at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

"Together with VMware, Cisco has unlocked the power of the network to extend virtual machines beyond the confines of a single stack to the entire data center and cloud infrastructure from different locations," said Soni Jiandani, senior vice president, Server, Access, Virtualization Technology Group for Cisco. "VXLAN will provide the ability to scale networking segments to millions of VMs to ease the deployment of applications in the cloud. Also, by segmenting these VMs and applications via highly secure virtual networks, customers will be able to achieve the security required for multi-tenant cloud environments."

Announced updates to desktop virtualization solutions include:

• Expansion of Cisco Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) system to support VMware View 5 and integration with Cisco collaboration solutions;
• Collaborative workspace through VMware View with Cisco Unified Communications, including call control and increased scalability with VMware vSphere 5, VMware View 5, Cisco Unified Communications (UC), and Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS);
• Availability of VMware View 5 on Cisco Cius and Cisco Virtualization Experience Clients (VXC) 2100 and 2200 endpoints; and
• Support for Click-To-Call communication between users running WebEx Connect inside VMware View virtual desktops.

Announced updates to cloud infrastructure include:

• Enhancements to Cisco and VMware combined solutions using VMware vSphere 5 and Cisco UCS 2.0 solutions;
• Support for VXLAN technology in VMware vSphere 5, VMware vCloud Director 1.5, and Cisco Nexus 1000V virtual switch;
• Auto-deploy capabilities in Cisco Nexus 1000V and VMware vCloud Director 1.5, enabling simplified installation and delivery of VXLAN-based network isolation;
• Plans to integrate Cisco's Virtual ASA firewall with VMware vCloud Director; and
• Automated hypervisor provisioning by Cisco UCS 2.0 through integration of VMware vSphere 5 Auto Deploy with UCS Manager, enabling administrators to deploy many VMware vSphere nodes lined to a single Auto Deploy boot image in a single operation.

VXLAN technology in Cisco Nexus 1000V will be available for beta in September 2011. VMware View 5 is expected to be generally available later in the third quarter of 2011. A draft of the VXLAN specification is available on the IETF Web site. A white paper about VXLAN is available on the Cisco site.