Vyatta and Software Defined Network

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) allows you to design, provision and scale Layer 2 (L2) networks to meet rapidly changing business needs. Vyatta’s virtual routers, virtual firewalls and VPNs enable you to connect the L2 SDN “islands” to each other, as well as the broader infrastructure. The promise to free network architects from many of the limitations of legacy network designs is immense, but to fulfill its promise, SDN will require software-based, API controlled routers, firewalls and VPN devices. Vyatta’s software-based networking and security solution is ideal for completing SDNs, as well as seamlessly connecting the SDN islands.

SDN is fast becoming an important building block for public and private clouds. One of the exciting promises of cloud-based datacenter architectures is “agility” – the ability to quickly respond to business needs by deploying compute and storage capacity with a few mouse clicks. Until today, networking has been left behind – requiring a call to the networking team to reassign VLANs or even rack new gear and run cables – impairing the ability of IT to be responsive. Putting all the servers in one large group has turned out to be a bad idea – forgoing established security practices and creating a new set of networking problems. Emerging SDN products allow users to allocate groups of servers on-the-fly – an important advancement in the datacenter.

But the need remains to connect and secure these groups – whether they are separated by physical network connections, VLANs or new SDN tools. Routers are needed to connect groups of servers to the corporate network and sometimes to each other, while using established protocols like OSPF and BGP. Firewalls are needed to protect the spread of threats in the datacenter, while VPNs secure access to the servers in the group.

Vyatta’s software-based networking and security solution provides these functions using mature, stable code that can be operated as virtual machines, removing the constraints of a fixed device with a finite, predetermined amount of physical ports and other resources. Vyatta’s router can be replicated and positioned where needed, avoiding network congestion due to unneeded trips out to a central router. Additionally, software-based routers can provide significant savings over a large, proprietary router – leveraging the economies of the x86 architecture.