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The following content is from an older version of this website, and may not display correctly. In an effort to simplify management of virtualized environments, maker of data center networking products Arista Networks has added functionality to network architecture that it claims unifies management of physical and virtual network infrastructure.
Arista VM Tracer, a new extension of the company's Extensible Operating System software, provides new levels of visibility into the virtualization layer to networking operators and gives VMware administrators seamless control through the VMware vSphere interface, according to an Arista news release. The extension was a product of collaboration between Arista and VMware.
Parag Patel, VP of Global Strategic Alliances at VMware, said Arista VM Tracer complemented VMware vSphere 4 vNetwork Distributed switch technology, bridging "the divide between the network and server teams, helping streamline their cloud deployments."
The new features run on Arista's 7000 family of switches.
Douglas Gourlay, Arista's VP of marketing, said VM Tracer was a result of the company's work with VMware. "With VM Tracer, Arista has delivered the best cloud networking platform for virtualization deployments that adapt to the requirements of the virtualization platform in real time," he said in a statement.
According to Arista, most network architectures today are not responsive to "dynamic segmentation requirements" of new virtualized infrastructures. VM Tracer adds such responsiveness capabilities, which include automatic creation, pruning and opening of virtual LAN's across the infrastructure as new VM's are added, moved or changed.
The Tracer's auto-discovery feature finds which physical and virtual machines are on a given network port and shows full physical-to-virtual binding, as well as showing network "reachability" of a given VM and its state.
VM host view, another new feature, gives network administrators critical information about the host machine, such as manufacturer, processor type and type of the network interface controller.
The Tracer also enables the EOS to automatically configure the interface based on best practices for connecting VM's.
Finally, the Tracer adds support for connections to up to four separate vCenter administrative domains per each vCenter Server instance. The capability allows for a single switch to connect to and take part in several virtualization domains simultaneously.
Arista VM Tracer, a new extension of the company's Extensible Operating System software, provides new levels of visibility into the virtualization layer to networking operators and gives VMware administrators seamless control through the VMware vSphere interface, according to an Arista news release. The extension was a product of collaboration between Arista and VMware.
Parag Patel, VP of Global Strategic Alliances at VMware, said Arista VM Tracer complemented VMware vSphere 4 vNetwork Distributed switch technology, bridging "the divide between the network and server teams, helping streamline their cloud deployments."
The new features run on Arista's 7000 family of switches.
Douglas Gourlay, Arista's VP of marketing, said VM Tracer was a result of the company's work with VMware. "With VM Tracer, Arista has delivered the best cloud networking platform for virtualization deployments that adapt to the requirements of the virtualization platform in real time," he said in a statement.
According to Arista, most network architectures today are not responsive to "dynamic segmentation requirements" of new virtualized infrastructures. VM Tracer adds such responsiveness capabilities, which include automatic creation, pruning and opening of virtual LAN's across the infrastructure as new VM's are added, moved or changed.
The Tracer's auto-discovery feature finds which physical and virtual machines are on a given network port and shows full physical-to-virtual binding, as well as showing network "reachability" of a given VM and its state.
VM host view, another new feature, gives network administrators critical information about the host machine, such as manufacturer, processor type and type of the network interface controller.
The Tracer also enables the EOS to automatically configure the interface based on best practices for connecting VM's.
Finally, the Tracer adds support for connections to up to four separate vCenter administrative domains per each vCenter Server instance. The capability allows for a single switch to connect to and take part in several virtualization domains simultaneously.