Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications company, announced its OneFabric architecture, the industry's first unified network fabric to span from the data centre to the wired and wireless edge.
OneFabric allows enterprises to provision the network end-to-end with consistent performance and enhanced security for business-critical applications, all managed from a single pane of glass. OneFabric is an open and standards-based architecture that provides simplicity, scalability and control for complex IT environments, delivering a platform for reducing network tiers, flattening data centre networks, and creating a more intelligent network infrastructure.
Enterasys will offer customers flexible entry points to deploy OneFabric without requiring a rip-and-replace of existing network infrastructure. Customers are able to identify their immediate infrastructure needs and implement one or more OneFabric solutions, including: OneFabric Data Centre, OneFabric Edge, or OneFabric Security. Unlike competing fabric solutions, OneFabric is able to coexist with existing infrastructure investments while providing incremental value.
“Virtualisation and distributed appliances are transforming every part of IT and to maximise the potential of virtualisation, the network must also transform. Our new OneFabric architecture brings simplicity and scalability to the delivery of business-critical applications, particularly in virtualised environments,” said Chris Crowell, president and CEO at Enterasys Networks. “OneFabric redefines what constitutes a fabric by providing a single architecture that spans from the data centre to the network edge, including wired, wireless, mobile and cloud. Furthermore, OneFabric provides one network environment, delivering one network experience, making predictable, reliable application delivery simple.”
OneFabric Control Centre provides unified management
Key to the OneFabric vision, Enterasys is also introducing OneFabric Control Centre, unique in the industry in delivering a single pane of glass for the unified management of an end-to-end fabric, including deep integration with virtual infrastructure from VMware, Citrix and Microsoft to dramatically improve network performance in virtualised data centres.
“Our OneFabric deployment from Enterasys provides us with a secure, highly available network spanning our unified wired/wireless edge to the data centre,” said Gaston Hebert, director of technical resources, St Edwards University. “OneFabric Control Centre provides us with 'single pane of glass' management, enabling us to automate provisioning for users, devices and applications. This allows us to reduce the time it takes to deploy and support new systems and 21st Century learning tools. OneFabric is helping St Edward's achieve its goal to deliver a secure, open and collaborative environment for our students, faculty and staff around the globe.”
OneFabric Control Centre, which is deployed as part of the initial customer implementation, becomes the unified management platform from which customers can manage both OneFabric and third-party network infrastructure. OneFabric Control Centre also delivers key integration with VMware, Citrix, and Microsoft virtualisation platforms to deliver automation, visibility and control across the virtual data centre environment.
OneFabric from Enterasys allows customers to evolve to fabric-based networking for application delivery, offering the following benefits:
Reduced complexity and cost: Tight integration into the workflows of virtualisation and storage teams deliver simplicity without compromise. The Enterasys unified architecture edge-to-data centre architecture also reduces complex and wasteful layers of management overhead, simplifies application delivery based on common technology components from the data centre to the edge, and delivers radically improved total cost of ownership.
Guaranteed IT service level agreements (SLAs): As organisations move towards public/private clouds, scale out their virtualisation deployments, and unify LAN/SAN solutions, network predictability and visibility often deteriorates. OneFabric makes it possible for IT to guarantee application delivery to the business, with infrastructure and tools to enable end-to-end automation across the entire network for consistent service provisioning and QOS.
Improved operational efficiency: It is no longer acceptable for IT to exist as a cost centre. IT must achieve cost savings transferrable to the bottom line, where operational efficiency is a key metric. Customers who have adopted OneFabric have achieved network management efficiency gains of up to 90%.
“Enterprises need to think beyond the traditional silos of networking, storage and servers and take a holistic approach to their enterprise and data centre network,” said Rohit Mehra, director, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, IDC. “With server virtualisation and the issue of virtual machine (VM) sprawl, gone are the days when server teams didn't need to interact with the networking group. Instead, IT organisations have to work collaboratively to ensure optimised application delivery, all the way from the virtual server to the mobile edge. Architectures such as OneFabric from Enterasys provide customers with solutions to these problems with consistent policy management and automation that spans from the data centre to the mobile edge.”
Additional supporting quotes:
“As we continued to virtualise our environment, while also becoming more highly mobile, we struggled to manage each virtual machine and device with its own set of provisioning and security requirements. Enterasys Data Centre Manager, now integrated in OneFabric Control Centre, provides us the automation necessary to appropriately provision and secure each device. Providing that level of automation and visibility across the entire network is imperative to manage the changing and ever-evolving nature of our network.” - Michael Proft, IT director, University Hospital Leipzig. “Virtualisation has redefined every part of IT over the past decade, except the network.”
“For companies to fully leverage virtualisation and maximise the ROI of this new era of IT, the network now must transform. The Enterasys OneFabric vision addresses not only the transformation of the data centre network, but addresses the needs of the end-to-end enterprise network. OneFabric will allow CIOs and IT managers to focus on optimising user experience, not just IT infrastructure.” - Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst, ZK Research
Resources
1 Enterasys OneFabric Web page
2 Enterasys on Twitter
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Enterasys Networks and Siemens Enterprise Communications
Siemens Enterprise Communications is a premier provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, including voice, network infrastructure and security solutions that use open, standards-based unified communications and business applications for a seamless collaboration experience. This award-winning “Open Communications” approach enables organisations to improve productivity and reduce costs through easy-to-deploy solutions that work within existing IT environments, delivering operational efficiencies. It is the foundation for the company's OpenPath commitment that enables customers to mitigate risk and cost-effectively adopt unified communications.
Jointly owned by The Gores Group and Siemens AG, Siemens Enterprise Communications includes Cycos and Enterasys Networks.
For more information about Siemens Enterprise Communications or Enterasys please visit www.siemens-enterprise.com or www.enterasys.com.
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