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Pluribus Networks Announces Netvisor Open Fabric Virtualization (OFV); Achieves High Scores in Open Networking User Group (ONUG) Virtual Network Overlays Test
[May 13, 2015]

Pluribus Networks Announces Netvisor Open Fabric Virtualization (OFV); Achieves High Scores in Open Networking User Group (ONUG) Virtual Network Overlays Test


ONUG SPRING 2015 - Pluribus Networks, the company that brings hyper-convergence to software-defined networking (SDN) through the industry's most programmable, open-source-based operating system, Netvisor® (nvOS), announced impressive performance results as part of the recently conducted Open Networking User Group (ONUG) testing. The full report can be found here. Some of the highlights are:

  • Netvisor working as distributed controller and automatically orchestrating switch hardware-based VXLAN tunnels. Based on top requirements from customers and ONUG, Pluribus networks demonstrated with IXIA and ONUG validation that Netvisor can orchestrate hundreds of switch to switch tunnels that allows 100,000 end points to talk at 95 percent of 10 Gbps line-rate with zero packet loss. This exceeded the test criteria 95 times.
  • The convergence for 100,000 end points was 25.5 seconds from cold start and 7.35 seconds once the end points were learned by the distributed Netvisor Fabric. These results were 35 times faster then the test criteria.
  • Netvisor Fabric supports open northbound and southbound interfaces in the form of an OpenStack Neutron plugin, OVSdb, and Openflow. In addition, Netvisor also offers REST, C and Java API for controlling, orchestrating, and programming the fabric. Third-party controllers can use any of these to orchestrate H/W based VTEPs instead of using Netvisor native orchestration engines.

he tests are the first public demonstration of Pluribus Netvisor Open Fabric Virtualization (OFV) based on the company's fabric-connect technology. OFV unifies the physical and the virtual, uniquely providing network visibility and analytics for virtual machine tunnels, addressing key ONUG working group requirements. It leverages the Netvisor broadcast-free fabric, foundational to the solution's scalability and automation. OFV is now available for early access.



The test results further validate Netvisor's distributed server-switch based control plane as an enabler for tunnel orchestration and visibility across arbitrary Layer 3 backbone as part of an evolving leaf-spine data center architecture. The Netvisor platform includes the Pluribus Freedcom series spine-based controller appliances and OCP (News - Alert)-based leaf switches running Open Netvisor Linux.

"Pluribus Networks went above and beyond the feature verification test methodology developed by the ONUG Virtual Networks/Overlays working group and delivered impressive performance results in addition to feature verification," said Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of ONUG Nick Lippis. "These ONUG feature verification tests results, to be unveiled on May 13 at ONUG hosted by Columbia University, are meant to help IT business leaders understand if open cloud infrastructure technologies are ready to operationalize. I think many people are going to be surprised just how ready some of these technologies are."


"Our Netvisor distributed fabric automatically recognized that switches were connected over a Layer 3 topology and automatically orchestrated the Layer 2 overlays using VXLAN and the switch hardware without requiring any configuration or additional software," said Sunay Tripathi, CTO and co-founder of Pluribus Networks. "The server VM could transition Layer 3 boundaries without needing complex tunnel orchestration software and doing tunneling in software, thus eliminating the 'tunnel tax.' The CIO has in effect regained 50 percent of server CPUs that were being spent on software overlays, security, and network services."

Test results are being demonstrated at ONUG Spring taking place May 12-14 at Columbia University in New York City. Pluribus is also demonstrating Netvisor fabric and analytics capabilities at the conference.

The ONUG Virtual Network Overlays Working Group, representing the "who's-who" of the Fortune 100, is tasked to define and test requirements for scalable SDN deployments within enterprises. At ONUG Fall 2014, the group released a top-10 requirements document that highlighted interoperability, control plane scale, monitoring, and correlation of overlay and underlay state as priorities. The testing, in conjunction with Ixia (News - Alert), mirrors these priorities and is the most sophisticated SDN test scenario to-date.

About Pluribus Networks

Pluribus Networks delivers software-defined networking as an open application platform for today's data centers. The company's flagship product, Netvisor®, is the industry's first distributed network hypervisor operating system, converging compute, network, storage and virtualization with an open, programmable approach. Our customers realize tangible and immediate business benefits while protecting their existing network investments. For more information, visit www.pluribusnetworks.com or go to www.twitter.com/pluribusnet.


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