Many companies have been shifting from a data center only model into a hybrid and/or multi-cloud model. This means applications are moving out of the data center resulting in a mixed environment. IoT adoption is growing fast and the edge is now often the place where business is happening. These fundamental changes have a huge impact on the traditional network model we have been using in the past 15 years. This is putting a lot of pressure on the business and IT. IT is still figuring out which controls are needed to ensure security, compliance, reliability, flexibility and cost–efficiency … but in many cases, this is already too late because applications and data are already out of the secure confinements of the data center. There needs to be a better way to have manageability, automation, visibility, security and connectivity that spans the data center out to the edges.
Another major influence on how we need to modernize networking for the coming 20+ years is the big shift in application architectures from traditional, monolithic client/service applications to modern, cloud-native apps based on a microservices architecture. Digital Transformation is changing the requirements of enterprise networking.
The Virtual Cloud Network journey envisions a modern network model that uses the fundamentals of cloud to define the network and security model for digital enterprises. It’s about building consistency in network and security policy for data and apps regardless of where or what they are running – data center, branch, cloud or edge and traditional workloads and modern workloads. The network is delivered in software, is intrinsically secure and is built on a consistent fabric.
The Virtual Cloud Network vision is realized with the VMware NSX portfolio. VMware NSX is the foundation of the Virtual Cloud Network and at the heart of every cloud journey.
