Enabling the network-embedded cloud
Until now, the networking component of cloud infrastructure has been confined primarily to intra-data-center communication. However, there are a number of factors that are driving the development of inter-data-center networking. These requirements need to be analyzed to understand the differences in the resource environments of intra- and inter-data-center communication; and the characteristics of data-center traffic patterns throughout the life cycle of a given workload.
Network virtualization provides tenants with secure, isolated, elastic network-slices with associated SLA guarantees – in essence, Networking as a Service (NaaS). Cloud orchestration and elastic networking act as the glue that binds computational, storage and networking resources together.
To fully adopt the cloud as a central technology, additional network considerations such as bandwidth, latency and privacy need to be addressed. Current VPN technology takes these parameters into consideration in the WAN but comprehensive integration into the cloud technology base is lacking.
The complete article details Ericsson’s vision of the network-embedded cloud and elastic networking.
David Allan, James Kempf and Torbjörn Cagenius