Transforming Traditional Network Virtualization Into Multi-Cloud & Cloud-Native Architecture

In line with our recent prediction, TMForum’s recent post on Network transformation describes the major disruption that takes place with traditional network virtualization. 

“The real problem for network transformation is now becoming multi-dimensional: multi-environment, multi-vendor, multi-technology, multi-standard/open source” 

Cloudify 5 introduces new advancements that help transform traditional network virtualization to next-generation multi-cloud and cloud-native network orchestration.

The key strategy that we took in this Cloudify 5 release cycle was to bring together a new multi-cloud and cloud-native approach into network orchestration. We enabled the management of the network orchestration as part of the application delivery pipeline. This approach is already being used by our Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) customers and has even gained major recognition during NFV world congress as indicated by our recent win at SDN NFV World Congress.

With Cloudify 5 series we also bring this capability to our enterprise customers with the introduction of new service orchestration modeling and ansible integration that enables users to plug-in multi-cloud networking as well as network security services including F5, Fortigate and Palo Alto.

Enterprise and Managed Security Service Providers can also deliver these network services through a self-service catalog portal as well as providing a simpler way to extend and model those services through the Cloudify composer service.

Our new networking guide provides a detailed guideline that illustrates the best practices for modeling and managing multi-cloud network services in a consistent way across different cloud infrastructures.

This release also introduces new early access features targeted to address multi-site and edge networking use cases. The new multi-site map-view provides a means in which users could monitor the state of cloud deployment based on their geographical distribution.

Our latest version also introduces major scale improvements via optimization of a single Cloudify cluster that can now serve 10x more concurrent executions by moving to a cloud-native architecture. Cloudify can now also handle infinite scale through ‘Spire’ which handles scale through a federated cluster architecture.

About Cloudify Spire:  a service that is provided as a feature preview and allows customers to deploy and manage multiple Cloudify clusters through a single point of access. This includes full automation of deploying and managing full-blown production-grade Cloudify clusters on AWS and OpenStack.

As with all updates, the latest version of Cloudify also includes many more new features alongside security and stability improvements with over 240 stories introduced, and an additional 400 resolved issues and tasks. Access full release notes here.  

Client Use Cases 

Cloudify 5 has been developed and used in close collaboration with customers and partners. Some of which have been announced publicly:

• The partnership with Intel and F5 demonstrates how you can run I/O Intensive workload on a multi-cloud and cloud-native infrastructure 
• CMC and technology partner ENEA, 128T, Nokia Nuage as well as Intelsat to deliver a Multi-vendor SD-WAN solution
• KPN delivers a new Network Transformation project of their network services into a fully automated stack that fits within their CI/CD environment. This project won the Innovation  Award At SDN NFV World Congress.

In addition to that Cloudify is being used to deliver many Kubernetes based ONAP clusters across multiple regions and sites. Cloudify 5’s new active/active clustering and DBaaS is used to deliver geo-redundancy architecture in some of those deployments. 

The Need for Change

There is a growing realization that the public cloud is becoming the new network, as noted this 2020 prediction post :  CSPs are also realizing this and are now aligning their strategy to be more inclusive to the public cloud as noted by TM Forum.

“CSPs largely have resisted partnering with public cloud providers because of questions about reliability and security, but they should take the lead of companies like AT&T, Vodafone, and Verizon and embrace it for at least some workloads,” he writes. “Not only do the economics and the complex demands of consumers and enterprises demand it, but the cloud is ready.”

Cloudify 5 was designed to enable a smooth transformation from the traditional network virtualization approach into the new multi-cloud and cloud-native approach, by enabling users to manage a hybrid stack of traditional network services alongside cloud-native services as noted in Shay Naeh’s post describing a hybrid stack use case. This use case includes a combination of hardware appliance as the internet gateway and a combination of VM (VNF) and Cloud-Native services (CNF) to handle the network security within and outside the Kubernetes cluster, all while leveraging Intel-based hardware acceleration to speed up the encryption performance and network traffic.

Hungry for More?

Want to take a deeper dive in our latest version 5 release? Sign up for our Webinar where our specialists not only be presenting the release in full, but will also be on hand to answer any questions asked. Click the button below to sign up for the Webinar!