Here is a list of key words that relate to virtualization. Do you see any that should be included?
Application Program Interfaces (APIs)
* Enable orchestration of network devices and technologies within IaaS environments.
* Plug-ins and authentication/authorization control software.
Control Planes
* Can rely on a software-defined networking controller.
* Can use traditional network protocols,
Multi-tenancy
* Allows the physical network to be divided into smaller, isolated logical networks.
* Networks can be created for specific sets of data and/or applications.
* Used in cloud networks
Network hypervisor:
* Allowing engineers to provision virtual network components and tenants or paths that are completely independent of the underlying physical network.
* Tool that provides an abstraction layer of a network
Network Virtualization
* Effective in networks that experience sudden and unforeseen data surges and capacity-hungry applications.
* Intended to improve productivity and efficiency
* Method of providing virtual instances of physical networks
* Performing tasks automatically, allowing files, images and programs to be centrally managed from a single physical site.
* Separating bandwidth into independent channels.
Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE)
* Overlay or tunneling protocol for network virtualization.
Overlay Network
* Consists of virtual switches that reside on the virtualized servers.
* Handle virtual switching on the server hosts, similar to a physical network.
* On the edges of a physical network
* Relies on a network control plane
* Software construct
OpenStack Quantum
* Cloud networking controller
Quantum
* Includes a growing list of plug-ins that enable interoperability with various commercial and open source network technologies.
Storage media
* Can be easily added or reassigned
* Storage space can be shared or reallocated among the servers
* Such as hard drives and tape drivers
Switches
* Used to create an abstracted, virtual network on top of the underlying physical infrastructure.
Virtual LANs (VLANs)
* Isolate apps and tenants in a cloud computing environment
* Specifications allows for up to 4,096 network IDs to be assigned at any given time.
Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN)
* Allow network engineers to migrate virtual machines across long distances
* Make it easier for network engineers to scale out a cloud computing environment isolating cloud apps and tenants.
* Play an important role in software-defined networking (SDN).
* Proposed encapsulation or tunneling protocol for running an overlay network on existing Layer 3 infrastructure.
Virtual Switch (vSwitch)
* A software instance of a physical switch that allows virtual machines (VM) to communicate with one another.
* Can be included in a server's hardware as part of its firmware
* Intelligently directs communication on the network by inspecting packets before forwarding.
* Manage the movement of VMs and aid in the provisioning and management of VLANs in the data center network.
* Not traditionally been designed to present visibility of the virtual network to network engineers
* Similar to a physical Ethernet switch
* Some vendors have embedded vSwitches directly into their hypervisors.
Ten essential network virtualization definitions from Tech Target
