Pluribus unveils Unified Cloud Networking vision

Pluribus Networks has revealed its vision and architecture for Unified Cloud Networking, featuring the Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric™. This industry-first architecture enables a unified networking model across distributed clouds and across switches and server-based data processing units (DPUs) with zero-trust distributed security, built-in automation and pervasive visibility. Cloud operators, including enterprises, cloud service providers and communication service providers now have a solution that enables them to evolve smoothly to a new cloud networking architecture and realize enhanced security, dramatically reduced complexity, lower total cost and increased agility to safely accelerate their businesses at cloud speed.

Pluribus also announced its collaboration with industry leader NVIDIA to enable a core aspect of the Unified Cloud Networking architecture. Pluribus has ported its proven Netvisor® ONE OS, widely deployed in data center switches around the globe, to the NVIDIA® BlueField®-2 DPU, which offloads, accelerates and isolates data center infrastructure tasks, enabling the Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric to extend across both switches and DPUs. This solution leverages the full power of the NVIDIA BlueField hardware accelerators and NVIDIA DOCA™, the software development framework that powers BlueField. Initial use cases for the architecture include software defined networking (SDN)-automated unified network fabrics with distributed security services, including microsegmentation, distributed firewalls and pervasive network visibility. Registrations for Early Field Trials (EFT), which start on May 1st, 2022, are now open at https://www.pluribusnetworks.com/EFT.

Cloud network operators of all types recognize the need to move to a new, more highly distributed networking and zero-trust security architecture to address increasing cybersecurity risks, while also transforming their cloud networks to become as agile, highly available and simple to operate as the hyperscale public clouds. Pluribus solutions built on the Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric, the next generation of the company’s award-winning Adaptive Cloud Fabric, enable cloud network operators to overcome obstacles in their current environment and deficiencies in existing solutions, so they can rapidly move toward this goal.

Attributes of the Pluribus Unified Cloud Networking architecture and Unified Cloud Fabric include:

●  Unified and simplified cloud networks. Pluribus eliminates fragmented networks with separate operating models, enables smooth migration toward the new distributed architecture and lowers operational complexity and cost by delivering a consistent network operations model across underlay (physical) and overlay (virtual) networks, across switches and servers, and across heterogeneous, distributed clouds.

●  Distributed security without compromises. Pluribus enables network security to be distributed to the server level, including fine-grained microsegmentation and distributed stateful firewalls. Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric enables substantially better performance and lower total cost of ownership compared to hardware appliances or purely software-based solutions.

●  Pervasive visibility. Pluribus delivers built-in application-aware visibility and analytics for every application and every traffic flow, improving proactive trouble detection and resolution while eliminating the extra cost and incomplete coverage of separate monitoring networks.

●  SDN-enabled automation. Pluribus solutions incorporate industry-leading controllerless SDN automation to enable network operations teams to manage highly-distributed networks with thousands of DPUs and other network endpoints, while avoiding the challenges of integrating third-party automation tools or building and maintaining do-it-yourself (DIY) scripts.

●  Accelerated SDN on the host. Running the Pluribus Unified Cloud Fabric on the NVIDIA BlueField DPU extends the power and flexibility of software-defined, hardware-accelerated networking to every host with a DPU installed.