If you missed our webcast on the upcoming Nexus 1000V release for Microsoft Hyper-V, you missed the announcement that we are now making available a beta version to the general public, as of March 6. (Note: Everyone asks, so, no, we haven’t announced the availability date for the GA version yet, but it’s coming soon). This should be great news for the large number of folks that we had to turn away that we couldn’t support in our earlier alpha and high-touch beta releases.
In the webcast, Damian Flynn, a 2012 Microsoft MVP for Data Center and Cloud, and IT Architect for Lionbridge Technologies in Ireland, who was one of the early beta-testers for the Nexus 1000V Hyper-V version, gave an outstanding overview of the Nexus 1000V in a Hyper-V and System Center environment. It’s worth listening to the webcast replay if you have the time. Damian had some really exciting things to say about his experiences. The webcast was admirably co-hosted by our own Appaji Malla, product manager for Nexus 1000V for Hyper-V.
The new beta version is available to anyone with a valid email address, and who provide their company name and contact address. Beta users must be willing to test the product and provide constructive feedback. Beta users are also encouraged to participate in the discussion forums and contribute to the Nexus 1000V beta community site.
As described in this week’s webcast (download the slides here; or watch the replay here), the beta process starts with an email to: beta-n1kv-hyperv@cisco.com. A link to a beta site will be sent in an email invitation (you must have a userID on Cisco.com to access this site). You will then be prompted to accept the beta agreement, and then get access to the beta code and documentation. Please use the available discussion forums for support, questions and feedback. Read More »
It’s been a very big year for Nexus 1000V so far, with the introduction of Nexus 1000V InterCloud, and our reaching a key milestone of 7,000 virtual switch customers. The Nexus 1000V also continues to play an important role in our Cisco ONE portfolio for Software Defined Networking (SDN). Now, as we get closer to the GA of the Nexus 1000V virtual switch on Hyper-V, customers are looking for the detailed, hands-on information about integrating Cisco virtual networking into their Microsoft Windows Server infrastructures.
By integrating the Nexus 1000V virtual infrastructure into System Center, customers will be able to manage their virtual networks along with the rest of their cloud infrastructure, including compute and storage resources. SCVMM promises to help organizations build out and manage their private clouds, improve processes by automating workflows for standard tasks, and provide visibility to virtual applications across hybrid cloud locations.
Damian and the rest of the Nexus 1000V product management team will be providing more details on the benefits of Cisco virtual networking for Microsoft data center environments.
For the latest information on Cisco’s partnership with Microsoft and our virtual network infrastructure products for Windows 2012 and Hyper-V, you can go to http://cisco.com/go/microsoft
There’s been a great deal of excitement, interest and certainly follow-on questions after we announced our new hybrid cloud integration solution, Nexus 1000V InterCloud. My earlier three-part blog consisted of Part 1 on the architecture and features, Part 2 on the hybrid cloud management specifics, and Part 3 a recap of the frequently asked questions.
And now, we have the video demonstration. At Cisco live! last month in London, TechWise TV‘s Robb Boyd caught up with Prashant Gandhi, Sr. Director of Product Management in our Server Access and Virtualization Business Unit, before the trade show floor opened and recorded a demonstration of the new hybrid cloud infrastructure.
In this demo, Prashant quickly migrates a few virtual machines from our simulated private cloud to Amazon Web Services hosting servers. Part of the ease of use is through integration of Cisco’s Virtual Network Management Center (VNMC) InterCloud to Amazon cloud management tools, and the ability to view and manage virtual machines in both the private data center as well as those hosted in the cloud. The other important point about Nexus 1000V InterCloud is not only how it provides all the seamless layer 2 connectivity and security to connect the data center to public cloud resources quickly and easily, but security and application policies can be mirrored and migrated just as easily in the public cloud through the use and deployment of Cisco Cloud Network Services, such as our Virtual Security Gateway, the ASA 1000V Cloud Firewall or vWAAS. Take it away Robb and Prashant…
Today we wrap up our three part introduction of Cisco’s new hybrid cloud infrastructure, Nexus 1000V InterCloud. In Part 1, we provided an overview of the architecture and the components that make up Nexus 1000V InterCloud. In Part 2, we looked a bit more closely into the single pane management of the cloud network and resources across the on-premises private cloud and the cloud service provider. In Part 3, we’ll answer some of the most frequently asked questions we’ve been getting from customers, analysts and the press in the early stages of this announcement.
Q: What is Nexus 1000V InterCloud? What part of the hybrid cloud infrastructure does it comprise? Is it software, hardware, some combination of both? Is it a switch, a server or an application?
A: Nexus 1000V InterCloud is a set of software components that run as virtual machines on a variety of servers. It forms the infrastructure that extendss your existing on-premises virtual network and virtual services to cloud providers in a seamless and secure manner. It provides all the infrastructure and protocols to support VM migration from the data center to the cloud provider. Effectively, Nexus 1000V InterCloud (with VNMC InterCloud management software) creates a secure, on-demand layer-2 virtual private cloud (VPC).
This week, as part of a major cloud launch that also introduced the Nexus 6000 series and updates to our Cisco ONE portfolio, Cisco unveiled its Nexus 1000V InterCloud solution, which provides a seamless and secure extension of virtual networks from on-premises data centers to cloud service providers. In part 1 of our introductory blog series to this new technology, we discussed the architecture and components of Nexus 1000V InterCloud for creating secure, on-demand virtual private cloud (VPC) containers in a hybrid cloud. In a pre-launch post earlier in January, we looked at some new Forrester research data on hybrid cloud business drivers and how some organizations were looking to overcome the challenges to real hybrid cloud integration. Today, in part 2 of our InterCloud series, we are going into more depth about the hybrid cloud management component, Virtual Network Management Center (VNMC) InterCloud.
VNMC InterCloud provides a single pane view of VM and cloud resources across the on-premises resources and those at the cloud provider. It interfaces to orchestration tools and service provider management systems, as well as virtual machine managers.
The new beta version is available to anyone with a valid email address, and who provide their company name and contact address. Beta users must be willing to test the product and provide constructive feedback. Beta users are also encouraged to participate in the discussion forums and contribute to the Nexus 1000V beta community site.
