Networks

that
know
virtualization

Your ideas. Connected.

Copyright August 2014, Juniper Networks, Inc.

EBOOK

VITRUALIZATION

Preface
In both legacy IT data centers and emerging private
and public clouds, virtualization is becoming the
norm. Through virtualization, organizations are
realizing the benefits of scalability, agility and
efficiency. Scalability so firms can multiply server
capacity by several times over on the same budget.
Agility so IT can provision those servers in a matter
of minutes or even seconds, rather than days or
weeks. Efficiency so you can do it all at a much
higher return on investment than you could through
physical infrastructure alone.

According to Gartner:

Evolving server virtualization will also include long-distance

VM mobility among data centers, allowing on-the-fly movement
of running VMs among distributed data centers. This is the
natural extension of a virtualized data center into a cloud-inspired
infrastructure design, where virtualization spans multiple data
centers that may be geographically distributed.
(Source: Gartner Report, Hype Cycle for Networking and Communications, 2014, Bjarne Munch
and Jay Lassman, July 22, 2014)
Those are the heavy upsides, of course, but what
about the trade-offs? More specifically, what
about the effect on the network? As more of the
world becomes virtualized, connecting virtual
workloads on the network can present challenges
for many legacy network infrastructures.
The problem with virtualization is that it doesnt
just add more traffic to the network, it adds
more complexity, too. For an organization to
fully benefit from a virtualized cloud data center,
it requires a network that can keep pace with
todays agile virtual workloads. At the same
time, the network needs to be able to serve as
the bridge between the increasing number of
virtualized resources and the legacy systems
that are not yet virtualized. And it is increasingly
difficult to do this if the network is a closed and
proprietary system that is not open to innovation.

Networks that know virtualization

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Section 1
Know the lay of the land
The current state of the virtualization market is
characterized by many proprietary technology
stacks. This is partially due to a lack of open
standards, and the cloud computing market
is similarly fragmented, with many different
standards, platforms, and services
Ovum Report,Selecting a Virtualization and Cloud Management Solution, 201314, Roy Illsley, Principal Analyst, July 26, 2013

In todays competitive enterprise landscape, IT leaders are focused on a range of business imperatives.
Featured in many surveys and focus groups, these
stakeholders have noted the need for greater cost
management, increased mobility, higher application
availability and enhanced customer experience.

builders on an industrial scale as they ramp up their

offer to service-hungry customers, suppliers and
employees. Virtual appliances have played a key
role in the acceptance of cloud computing as a
well-proven means to rapidly and efficiently start
up a pre-configured server environment.

Its a daunting list and, in response, many are

looking to virtualization and cloud computing
models to deliver unprecedented agility in support
of these wide-ranging objectives. Thats hardly
surprising given the huge growth in the number,
type and design of applications spun out by the
modern enterprise.

While the first iterations of virtualization helped drive

consolidation, improve resource utilization and lower
the total cost of ownership, businesses are now
looking for virtualization to promote business agility
through shared resources and enhanced flexibility.

For those embracing these new models, many

have found that their existing infrastructures are
creaking under the demands for more performance,
resiliency, flexibility and scalability. After all, the
transition from a physical data center to virtualized,
automated, and elastic clouds has the potential to
introduce significant amounts of complexity.
Networks that were once connecting physical
appliances are now connected to virtual endpoints.
Resources that were static are now dynamic and
provisioned on demand. With more virtual machines
and network ports to connect them, the net result is
an exponential growth in the number of interactions
for the network to orchestrate.
So, to deliver on the promise of virtualization and
cloud computing, IT and network professionals are
looking to deploy flatter network architectures that
are optimized to deliver the speed, flexibility and
automation required by todays rapidly evolving
compute environments.

Consequently, organizations have become cloud

Networks that know virtualization

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Section 2
Know your VULNERABILITies
The network is critical both within the
data center and as public cloud adoption
increases, requiring more in-depth
monitoring of the network performance
Gartner Report, Hype Cycle for Networking and Communications,
2014, Bjarne Munch and Jay Lassman, July 22, 2014

Every year, service

providers and other
enterprises invest
heavily in data center
compute, storage,
applications, services,
and management plus
the technologies to
connect them all. For
those who ignore open
standards in these
solutions, an
unappetizing end is in
store one that
involves more cost and
complexity than is
necessary to piece
together the physical
and virtual operating
environments.

Networks that know virtualization

Industry analyst Ovum

describes an environment
that is still evolving:
Characterized by
proprietary technologies
that have only a
rudimentary ability to
support cross-platform
interoperability.
An often-overlooked
aspect of managing
virtual environments is
the need for any
management tool to
operate at a more
granular level than its
physical environment
counterpart. This
approach is further
complicated by the
need to holistically

manage the server,

network, client, user,
and storage elements.
(Source: Ovum
Report,Selecting a
Virtualization and Cloud
Management Solution,
201314, Roy Illsley,
Principal Analyst,
July 26, 2013).
Historically, most
networking devices have
been rigid in the number
and types of
architectures they
support, so any change
to that consequently
sparks a wholesale
refresh and a significant
amount of downtime.

Installing and
configuring individual
building blocks also
lengthens the time
required to provision
the network. That said,
its easy to see the
predicament facing
many enterprises that
are struggling with
proprietary systems
and tools.
Dealing with multiple
vendors also brings with
it different programming
languages to master.
Adding new protocols
and features,
implemented via new
devices, increases

application churn and

contributes to network
complexity.
Not every application
needs to be virtualized.
There may be
applications that
consume an entire
server where additional
utilization cant be
achieved. Similarly, there
may be apps that are
processor-intensive and,
therefore, virtualization
doesnt make sense.
VM sprawl is also a
disruptive factor caused
by the relative speed
and ease with which

VMs can be reproduced.

The disruption arises not
just from a complexity
and management
orchestration standpoint,
but other factors too.
VMs consume
resources, even when
they are unused. Plus,
when left un-patched,
they become a security
vulnerability, too.
Your business cannot
afford such vulnerabilities
given the importance of
data protection and user
acceptance of the cloud
model. Any impediment
to this will breed fear
and inhibit the

organizations ability to
roll out services with
optimum efficiency on
preferred hosting
platforms. How you
protect the cloud is just
as important as what
you protect. Access to
the entire cloud may be
protected by physical
firewalls but, once
inside, virtual assets
must be protected by an
agile, virtual security
architecture. To do that,
security must be
integrated into the cloud
architecture, not
addressed as a mere
afterthought.

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Section 3
Know your opportunities
The growing nexus of business, social and
technological forces (e.g. social media, mobile,
cloud and data) is driving the introduction of more
virtualization and cloud-based solutions across
the enterpriseand for good reason. But firms
cannot afford to over-complicate the situation in
the process and introduce after effects they live
to regret.
With any cloud project that involves elements of
virtualization and automation, the name of the
game is eliminating complexity. Only with this
approach can you hope to deliver better application
performance, an enhanced user experience and
improved economics for your business.
In the network, simplification can be achieved by
consolidating and combining switching, routing,
and security platforms, leveraging programmable
systems, network orchestration, SDN, and open
APIs that enable integration with the technology
ecosystem. These solutions also need to be
scalable, allowing you to develop and deploy
new applications or protocols without a rip-andreplace the net result bringing greater operational
simplicity and lower cost of ownership.

In 2016, 21% of x86

servers shipped will
be for virtualization,
supporting 82% of
workloads.
Gartner Report, Forecast Analysis: External
Controller-Based Disk Storage, Worldwide,
1Q14 Update, Roger W. Cox and Jimmie Chang,
April 23, 2014

Networks that know virtualization

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By having a simple, smart and open network

architecture in their data centers, business leaders
and IT personnel can look forward to improved
agility and efficiency required for true transformation.
Acting as the backbone of the business, this network
infrastructure will enable you to keep pace with
server virtualization and private, public or hybrid
cloud computing.
In particular, there are two key elements of your network portfolio you need
to address: the hardware and the interface. Your physical architecture should
feature high-performance, integrated switching and routing platforms that
deliver full business agility in the data center. To complement this, and ease the
management of physical and virtual data centers, you should easily be able to
view any changes to the network from a single pane of glass.
But remember, youll need to look for quality in your solution. Quality that
manifests itself through improved performance, lower latency and converged
services in virtualized data centers of any size. With this in place, corporations
can move around their virtual machines without having to worry about
performance degradation, downtime and the associated business costs.
Software-defined networking (SDN) also promises to make the network more
dynamic, manageable, cost-effective, and adaptable. But because the market
is so dynamic, its important to choose an approach that properly emphasizes
choice, open standards and vendor-neutrality. The path to SDN is evolutionary,
and allows you to enjoy a simplified network and operations that do away with
the complexity of multiple, vendor-specific devices and protocols.

Networks that know virtualization

Its all about creating

the most efficient
network path for your
mobile workloads.

p/ 11

Section 4
Know your checklist
What are the key attributes of a virtualized network architecture?
Your checklist:
Universal building blocks a single switch, multiple deployment options to support new
applications and larger scale
Simplicity multiple interconnected switches to form one logical device thats managed
as a single chassis
High-performance, any-to-any connectivity between all server, storage and security
devices in the data center
Agile SDN that automates and orchestrates the creation of highly scalable virtual networks
Interoperability with operation and business support systems
Ability to remove dependency on physical appliances that add cost to cloud models
Ability to manage virtual services on VMs across the network, such as security and load
balancing, and achieve service chaining with simplified integration through APIs
Layered security in the network, firewall, DDoS and application

Networks that know virtualization

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Copyright August 2014, Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Juniper Networks, the Juniper
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Copyright August 2014, Juniper Networks, Inc.

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