Follow Datanami:
May 2, 2016

Pluribus Networks Releases VCF Insight Analytics 1.5

LAS VEGAS, Nev., May 2 — Pluribus Networks today announced the release of version 1.5 of its network monitoring and business analytics solution, VCF Insight Analytics (VCF-IA), which raises the bar on the quality of business analytics available from the network. VCF-IA now provides automated metadata tagging allowing the business to get a contextualized view of their data center consumption. Guided by this intelligence, IT can much more easily troubleshoot and manage the network that mission critical applications and services rely on. Also part of today’s announcement, VCF-Insight Analytics is now available as a premier monitoring solution from Dell as part of its software-defined open networking portfolio.

VCF-IA 1.5 enables complete visibility into the flow of information between applications and services, an essential business enabler. The new version can be deployed in any data center network – either with or without other Pluribus Networks switches – to enable advanced monitoring and business analytics across a wide range of networking topologies, and at a fraction of the cost of competing solutions. And with the added business metadata capabilities, network monitoring truly becomes a business intelligence solution, rather than a network packet-level troubleshooting tool.

“For years, enterprises have been searching for an affordable way to gain deep insight into the business operation of their data center IT systems from the network perspective, but their efforts have been severely constrained by the significant investment required,” said Mark Harris, VP of Corporate Marketing at Pluribus Networks. “Working with Dell, we have proven that customers can deploy our switching solutions to transform their data centers and realize the industry’s most cost-effective SDN. The next logical step was to also provide customers with advanced networking insight and analytics, at up to 80 percent less cost versus the competition. And adding availability through our partner Dell enables any organization that wants this level of visibility to acquire it easily.”

VCF-IA version 1.5 includes the ability to automatically incorporate metadata in relation to the flow of information between various data center resources. The metadata engine is extensible, and virtually any type of metadata can be added. VCF-IA version 1.5 includes specific support for flows of information from Nutanix, VMware, IP-storage (e.g. iSCSI, NFS) as well as business attributes including organization, location, project type, funding source, and ownership. In real-time, each flow of information or transaction is tagged with these attributes and stored for subsequent trending analysis. Users can also utilize any combination of these tags to create role-based “project views” and dashboards. These specific views present only those systems, applications, or processes that are of interest to any given user and serves to tightly connect business applications and processes to the behavior of the network.

“A network visibility tool is one of the most strategic investments a forward-looking IT organization can make in support of digital transformation,” says Shamus McGillicuddy, senior analyst with Enterprise Management Associates. “Enterprises can significantly optimize overall performance and responsiveness of applications like big data, IP-storage and hyper-converged solutions with proper network visibility. However, IT needs visibility that can provide more than packet-level insight. Network monitoring tools can provide more value when they provide flow-based views of applications and business services, and this flow-based view is what Pluribus Insight Analytics is delivering.”

In a recent PNI Research survey of more than 200 data center managers, network visibility was identified as the most compelling attribute of a software-defined network, followed by agility and overall value. The combination of Pluribus VCF-IA’s business-centric flow monitoring and Dell’s Open Networking switch hardware addresses each of these requirements directly.

VCF-IA has been nominated as a finalist for the 2016 Best of Interop Awards in the “Performance, Management & Monitoring” category. Award winners will be announced from Interop Las Vegas 2016, which takes place May 2-6 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

For more information about VCF Insight Analytics, please visit here.

About Pluribus Networks

Pluribus Networks provides data center solutions that allow your business to run unconstrained. Our software-defined, open networking, fabric-based solutions transform existing network infrastructures into flexible and strategic assets fully aligned with today’s digital business needs. Our Virtualization-Centric Fabric (VCF) architecture provides unprecedented insight, agility and security to customers seeking to simplify operations, run more cost effectively and bring new applications online faster. Find us on the web at pluribusnetworks.com and @pluribusnet.


Source: Pluribus Networks

Datanami