SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Big Switch Networks today announced significant new capabilities of Big Cloud Fabric (BCF), including comprehensive networking support for hyper-converged solutions powered by VMware vSAN and virtual desktop and application solutions with VMware Horizon, as well as multi-container networking support for Mesosphere DC/OS and Kubernetes container orchestration platforms, including Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform. With further increases in performance, scale and deployment flexibility, Big Cloud Fabric is the ideal next-generation switching network for the software-defined data center (SDDC).

"Innovation velocity is imperative for companies around the world who have turned to Big Switch to make their vision of a next-generation data center a reality," said Douglas Murray, CEO, Big Switch Networks. "Interoperability in heterogeneous environments is mandatory for modern networks. With the newest BCF capabilities, we further deliver on our promise of differentiated networking solutions that surpass the requirements of our customers, while offering unprecedented operational simplicity and the ability for network, compute and storage teams to seamlessly work together."

Big Cloud Fabric is inspired by and incorporates design principles that hyperscale organizations like Google and Facebook use to build agile and flexible network architectures leveraging software-defined networking (SDN) controls, open networking switches and fabric design. Big Cloud Fabric is the optimal networking fabric for OpenStack environments as well as multiple VMware solutions via a single point of integration for the entire fabric. In VMware environments, BCF connects with the VMware vCenter API to provide physical network automation and end to end network visibility for VMware vSphere. BCF is an ideal SDN network fabric underlay for VMware NSX network virtualization deployments, VMware vSAN environments, and VMware vCloud NFV for service providers. In addition, BCF's Content Pack for VMware vRealize® Log Insight™ provides in-built fabric analytics and significant operational value to VMware admins. BCF enables networking to operate at the speed of virtualization.

In container environments, the BCF controller enables both virtual and physical network automation as well as fuller visibility of container-to-container traffic across the network, via integration with Mesosphere DC/OS, Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform orchestrators managing Docker or Mesos containers. Automated, policy-based rapid application and micro-service deployment is now possible via BCF without having to wait for manual switch-by-switch operational steps required with legacy networks. For integrating with container orchestration systems, Big Cloud Fabric leverages the standards-based Container Networking Interface (CNI) plugin framework to automate both physical and virtual networking.

Additional Big Cloud Fabric Enhancements

BCF's fabric-level innovations now deliver greater performance, scale and reach. Updates include:

Big Switch Networks