News

VMware Advances Full-Stack Networking Platform: NSX-T 3.0

• By David Ramel
• 04/09/2020

Virtualization kingpin VMware this week announced a major update to its full-stack networking and security platform, bringing NSX-T up to version 3.0.

The company says the platform covers the networking stack from Layer 2 to Layer 7, providing virtual networking, security, load balancing, visibility, and analytics in one offering.

In announcing NSX-T 3.0 -- part of its VMware Virtual Cloud Network -- the company touted improvements in cloud-scale networking, security, containers and operations.

"As enterprises adopt cloud, containers, and new applications, IT teams are managing more heterogenous and distributed environments that need to be secured, automated, and monitored," the company said in a March 8 blog post. "The need to run and manage workloads on all types of infrastructure, VMs, containers, bare metal across both private and public clouds, is greater than ever. Enterprises need end-to-end software-defined solutions to fully automate, connect, and protect all their workloads."

As have many other virtualization vendors, the company touted its wares for their ability to support business continuity amid a huge surge in remote work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) playing a key role in that effort.

"With VMware NSX and SD-WAN, organizations can support business continuity with more secure, reliable access for traditional and SaaS applications, including VoIP, UCaaS, collaboration, and VDI, from providers such as Microsoft, Zoom, Vonage, Ring Central, Windstream," VMware said in a news release. "With VMware NSX, customers can protect their remote workers who are using virtual desktops to access enterprise applications. NSX allows customers to easily microsegment and comprehensively enhance the security of their VDI environment without making any changes to their existing network infrastructure. VMware SD-WAN delivers an optimal teleworking experience for work-at-home users."

VMware said its SD-WAN solution recently received significant enhancements for business continuity and work-from-home deployments, along with enterprise routing and security, analytics, and management.

Speaking of the vast remote work migration, Virtualization & Cloud Review author Tom Fenton recently detailed his experience with VMware Horizon (desktop and app virtualization) in the article "Working from Home Via VMware Horizon in the Age of COVID-19."

The company also announced VMware vRealize Network Insight 5.2, which is expected to be available in its fiscal Q1 FY21, closing on May 1. That solution provides network visibility, analytics and more. The update "introduces flow-based application discovery across multiple VMware platforms using machine learning to better understand categorized applications by tier," the company said.