VMware presented at Networking Field Day 17. The presentation covered several topics, including an update on VeloCloud, NSX-T features, and a dive into the latest version of vSphere.

The Business Fabric

VMware began with a presentation from Pere Monclus, VP and CTO of the Network and Security business unit. He outlined VMware’s overarching vision to be the “business fabric” for the cloud age: that is, extending an NSX-based overlay from the data center to public cloud services such as AWS and Azure.

The company also intends to extend that fabric to the branch, thanks to VMware’s acquisition of SD-WAN vendor VeloCloud. There’s still a long way to go to integrate VeloCloud into NSX, but it seems clear that’s VMware’s goal.

Speaking of VeloCloud, delegates saw updates to that platform, including a new SD-WAN service for PCI compliance, the ability to segment different types of traffic at the branch, and other advances.

NSX-T

VMware also touted NSX-T for cloud-native environments, including an NSX container plug-in that integrates with Kubernetes and CloudFoundry.

The goal is to enable infrastructure teams to enforce networking and security policies within virutalized and container environments while letting the application developers do their thing.

NSX For vSphere 6.4

VMware provided a deep dive into the latest release of vSphere and its integration with NSX, including advances to its firewall capabilities. NSX could already function as an L4 stateful firewall; it’s now moved up the stack to L7, with the ability to recognize and enforce policies on approximately 50 common applications.

Audio Note:

If this podcast sounds like we recorded it in an empty hotel gym, that’s because we did. Network Field Day moves fast, so we had to take the first free room we could get.