NEC Delivers Software-Defined Networking for Windows Server Hyper-V Environments

Is the management of your data center a huge, onerous task? You’ve probably longed for a sense of simplicity in your life. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a single pane of control across your entire physical and virtual Microsoft environment? To easily increase your network utilization levels and experience a converged network infrastructure? NEC was the first company to bring an OpenFlow-based product to market, and now it has brought its ProgrammableFlow solution to Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V customers.

The ProgrammableFlow PF1000 virtual switch simplifies complex networks and integrates server and network virtualization within a single control pane for the Server 2012 Hyper-V customer. This integration enables advanced network automation, rapid delivery of network services, easy virtual machine (VM) mobility, and consistent application of business policy across the network. The solution essentially brings virtualization to the network by enabling the organization to decouple network logic from the physical network infrastructure.

We recently spoke with NEC representatives about the new ProgrammableFlow PF1000 virtual switch, which provides Software Defined Networking (SDN) and complete network virtualization. NEC also spoke about a new version of its award-winning ProgrammableFlow Controller, now with the world’s first OpenFlow IPv6 support.

Related: Check out our IPv6 Project Plan.

One company already making the most of the NEC solution is Edgenet, which was an early adopter of the ProgrammableFlow Network Suite, including the PF1000 virtual switch. Mike Steineke, Edgenet’s vice president of IT, joined us for the call. “The NEC ProgrammableFlow switch and controller for Hyper-V allows Edgenet to not only improve network service delivery, it allows us to increase our network utilization levels without concern of service level disruption and realize a truly converged network infrastructure affordably.”

The ProgrammableFlow Controller is open SDN software for virtualizing and automating networks. Ideally suited for corporate and service provider data centers, ProgrammableFlow Controller provides a cost-effective, high-performance, highly scalable SDN platform. According to NEC, no other solution can provide virtual L2 and L3 networks with Quality of Service (QoS) and IPv6 support across an OpenFlow enabled switch fabric.

The ProgrammableFlow Controller is designed so that organizations can rapidly deploy, easily manage, and remotely control networks while saving space, management effort, and hardware costs. The results are optimal flexibility and manageability, and much lower total cost of ownership (TCO). Version 4 of the ProgrammableFlow Controller includes:

• IPv6 support to help customers move beyond the limitations of IPv4 addresses, simultaneously positioning the network and business for the future with a virtualized, programmable network. NEC is the only SDN provider to offer IPv6 support.
• OpenStack support, which gives ProgrammableFlow Open SDN customers a common platform that is dynamic, flexible, scalable and open. OpenStack Folsom and the OpenFlow protocol used in ProgrammableFlow networks combine for a unified cloud solution to manage all IT resources.
• REST-based northbound API offers an integrated interface to enable programmability of the entire network for service agility and network control. This network-level API enables uniform application and automation of consistent business policy.

For more information about NEC, check out the company website. You can also view NEC’s video entitled “Getting Started with Software-Defined Networking.”