Cisco Takes a Major Step in "Virtualizing" the Data Center Network

September 16, 2008

by Charles Waltner

Data centers, the heart of the Information Age, are overwhelmed by their rapidly increasing digital payloads. But the computer industry has found a way to update these communications hubs for the 21st century. It's called virtualization.

Virtualization, however, comes with an assortment of technical challenges. To help out, Cisco Systems is doing a little virtualizing of its own. In a major step in this effort, the company, in conjunction with VMware Inc., announced today a new kind of product: a virtual networking switch, the Nexus 1000V. In essence, the software-based Nexus 1000V creates a network inside servers to connect what's known as "virtual machines."

Virtualization uses software, called a hypervisor, that makes it possible to run multiple operating systems, or virtual machines, on one computer. This allows server computers to function far more efficiently, in the process saving energy and streamlining operations.

But like physical servers, virtual servers need to talk to one another. Also, data center operators must identify, monitor, move, and update them. While virtualization software companies have developed some tools to help, data centers need a new architectural design-a virtual one-to make these new fangled machines work better together.

Soni Jiandani, vice president of marketing for Cisco's Server Access and Virtualization business unit, says the Nexus 1000V will allow the network to track virtual machines and treat them like physical servers, for the first time providing them a rich host of typical networking "policy" services for security, performance and other crucial communications functions.

Jiandani says this capability is possible thanks to a new protocol developed by Cisco and VMware called VN-Link. The two companies say they will work with industry organizations to develop a standard based on the new protocol.

VMware, the leading vendor and pioneer of virtualization software with 120,000 customers, will include the Nexus 1000V as part of its VMware Infrastructure, the company's flagship product suite. The companies say the new technology will be available in the first half of next year.

Cisco and VMware's new technology is part of an industry-wide effort to address a critical problem in data centers. Traditionally, data centers use one server per application, often leaving much of a computer's potential untapped. Given the explosion of the Internet and digital video, this one-to-one relationship of server to application has led to an exponential increase in the number of computers inside data centers.

With each server running at partial capacity, data centers waste massive amounts of computer resources and electricity. But virtualization makes it possible to tap most all of a computer's resources by running multiple applications-or fractions of applications-inside each server.

Jiandani says the management complications created by virtualized machines have held back adoption of this promising technology. VMware, for example, reports that its typical customers only virtualize 10 to 15 percent of their data center server traffic because of a lack of communications support for virtual machines.

Though the data center's problems extend far beyond what virtualization can address, technology experts say the Nexus 1000V is an important advancement that supplies a key piece to the puzzle.

"There's been some functionality missing," says Jason Lochhead, a chief technology officer for Terremark Worldwide. "The Nexus 1000V bridges the gap between the network and the virtual infrastructure. Until now, it's been a little tough to get good information about what is going on with virtual machines from a network perspective."

Terremark, which runs high-end data centers for hosting Websites, email services, and other computing operations for large organizations, uses virtualization to more efficiently operate its servers and save energy. Perhaps more importantly, virtualization provides greater flexibility, Lochhead says. "With virtualization, if a customer only needs one-half of a server worth of capacity, we can now provide that. Before, we would have had to charge them for a whole server because there was no way to divide our machines."

Analysts say Lochhead's story is now common in the industry. Virtualization is widely recognized as a major advancement in running data centers. It's just a matter of developing all the tools necessary for supporting this nascent capability.

"In my career, I've seen very few technologies that can deliver such a magnitude of benefits so quickly as virtualization," says Andreas M. Antonopoulos, a senior vice president at Nemertes Research. "Or as one CIO said to me, either you have a very good reason for not doing it, or you are an idiot."

Cisco's work in virtualization is part of its far-reaching data center architectural vision, what it calls Data Center 3.0. Earlier this year, Cisco unveiled the landmark Nexus 7000 series, a massive and ultra-fast networking switch that will be the main brain for coordinating Cisco's data center networks. It also debuted the Nexus 5000, a speedy 10-gigabit Ethernet "access" switch for helping applications talk to other applications, servers, and data repositories.

Both switches and the new Nexus 1000V use Nexus OS (NX-OS), the company's new data center network operating system. "The Nexus 1000V is made with the same technology that's in our hardware switches, so it will have the look and feel of the rest of our network," she says.

All of these steps are part of Cisco becoming increasingly involved in "a much bigger discussion" about how networking technologies can help transform data centers, Jiandani says.

Certainly, VMware believes in the importance of the network in bringing about revolutionary improvements to data centers. "I think of the network as the glue that holds together the new virtual infrastructure of data centers," says Stephen Herrod, the chief technology officer for VMware. "That's why we are so interested in working with Cisco. There's so many different types of communications that need to go on, and all of them rely on a very robust, well-designed network."

The Nexus 1000V is the most recent result of a growing effort between Cisco and VMware to smooth the way for virtualization. Last year, the two companies announced integration of Cisco's VFrame data center management software with VMware's products. And in July 2007 Cisco invested $150 million in the Palo Alto, Calif., company. Also, Ed Bugnion, a co-founder of VMware, is now part of Cisco's data center team.

Jiandani says Cisco and VMware have more good things in the works, including an effort to jointly offer assessment and design services for helping companies adopt virtualization technologies.

Cisco, however, is far from the only company looking to boost its role in the data center, analysts say. Indeed, the stakes are high as these computing facilities undergo a complete makeover. The IT industry's biggest companies, including IBM, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard, are all converging on this $10 billion market in what industry observers refer to as a "clash of the Titans."

While Antonopoulos says the fevered competition for a piece of the data center pie is spurring a period of rapid innovation, ultimately Cisco and its peers must find a way to develop standards and interoperability among all its parts.

Cisco couldn't agree more, Jiandani says. Though the company believes networking technology can play a bigger role in improving data center operations, the company understands that it cannot unilaterally solve the problems of these complex computing environments, she says.

Cisco's work with VMware and its relationship with other major vendors is a prime example of the balance between competition and cooperation technology companies must strike as the data center goes through its watershed transformation. VMware, which has integrated Cisco's technology in its software, also relies on IBM and HP to embed its software-and Cisco's-in their servers. "They are great partners for us," Jiandani says.

Antonopoulos says virtualization is just "shining a light" on many of the inherent problems of traditional data center operations. Much of those have to do with a historic lack of integration among the servers, network, and storage technologies inside data centers.

"The lines are blurring as virtualization takes hold," Antonopoulos says. "For data centers to really work the way they need to, all the parts and all the people have to come together."

Charles Waltner is a freelance writer in Piedmont, Calif.