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Network Virtualization Definitions

Written by Dasha Bushmakin | Jun 18, 2013

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