Dell introduces active fabric controller that virtualize and automates networking for open stack. Enterprises are now taking a serious look at private cloud based on open source technologies. The model has been a few racks within the data center or a co location as a starter. We address the complexity of networking within the open stack for enterprise users. By using Sdn. We use a network plug in into the network open stack neutron and a control plane entity outside of physical switches.
To achieve this automation. From a cloud administrator's perspective, the presence of the controller is transparent for most network functions. The rest API calls between the components do the underlying job. The user interface of the controller is used for higher level administration by creating multiple providers on the same infrastructure. There can be multiple open stack instances each of which can be classified as a provider. Each provider has multiple tenants in it. Each tenant has multiple physical hosts associated with it and each of those hosts could have multiple networks with multiple end points as V MS and policies and flows associated with each of those tenants.
Moving on the UI also shows a map of physical layout of the networks servers and VMS. The nodes and links are shown in concentric circles with the fabric in the middle mouse over shows the details and a click on a switch or a link shows more details. This click shows the detail of the end points of this link with IP addresses and physical interfaces associated with it. Next, we look at the auto discovery feature of the controller, the UI refreshes to show the new switches being added in the network and detected by the controller. The switch interconnects are discovered and the topology graph is built. The complete topology is already visible to the controller.
The yellow link denotes the virtual link trunk which by the way is only a logical construct. In this case with no protocols running. The controller also detects physical nodes and the V MS connected to them including Nick teeming were configured. The U I is based on simple rest API outputs received from the controller. A restful call is made and the results are displayed in the U I the home page and it shows the end points on this tenant. Notice the query on the top is built to get a list of end points which are received and listed here in the U I. We see how an endpoint or VM is created in open stack for tenant that instantly shows in the UI this is the open stack horizon dashboard that an admin uses to create an open stack environment.
This is where we navigate down to that particular tenant and we choose the list of instances currently available. We launch a new instance, we give it a name and we choose the number of instances we want, we choose the image we want to launch. And the network which has already been created is associated with that VM. The UI shows that now the instances are being created and the network suddenly appears that is associated with these VMS. Let's refresh. And we see that the, the VM that we created customer three already shows up on the U I.
We move on to the next step where we add a middle box in the fabric. In this case, it is a Sonic wall physical appliance. We define the fabric edge and choose the switches where this physical appliance is connected. We associate the interfaces. This physical appliance is connected for entry and exit into the into the fabric. The resource ID is your Sonic wall. In this case, the resource type is chosen as a middle box. Notice that this is also the place where you would be able to define your port mirroring and span ports. We choose the exit point with the same nomenclature. Now we refresh this to switch to see if this has taken effect. The two interfaces are now reserved for Sonicwall.
So far, we have only created a fabric edge which could be common to all providers Next, we'll go on to create a policy associated for this firewall for a certain provider or a tenant. In this policy definition, we choose a provider and define a policy name again. This is also the UI to create other policies like Vanport Association. And both mirroring, we define the match criteria here and redirect all traffic to the firewall. Now all traffic should be going to the firewall and it enters back into the fabric as firewall rules dictate a nice feature for troubleshooting the flows in the network is the ability to track the flows. We can choose the end points and get the details of all flows originating and terminating on that VM.
The query fetches us the complete path trace within the fabric of that flow. The flows could be made more granular. The dark yellow path is the trace of that flow across the fabric. So what value does this solution bring to you as a user multi tenancy for multiple providers or instances of cloud can be used in this controller. It's been tested with many open stack distributions including red hat and sold as an integrated Dell solution for open stack ease of network provisioning in open stack deployments, you can zero touch provision, the network and hit the ground running a user interface to provision, network services like security, all that and more from our consulting and services partners like cloud scaling
