|
Enterasys Announces Fabric Architecture Message: OneFabric
| Oct 19, 2011 | Enterprise Networking
| Analyst: Mike Spanbauer
Event Summary
October 17, 2011 -- Enterasys Networks announced its OneFabric data center and enterprise network vision, enabling end-to-end user experience management through tightly integrated policy and QoS controls. Enterasys has woven a story around the policy application and end-user experience management that goes beyond simple networking and addresses the need for an end-to-end management solution.
Quick Take
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Positive on Enterasys’ launch of OneFabric as a complete data center fabric story, because that context had been missing for its existing dense, fast switches. OneFabric leverages Enterasys’ policy and security strengths while balancing the reality of the ideal account target size.
• Vendor Importance: High to Enterasys, because the target customers represent the bulk of Enterasys revenue, and without a data center vision, that installed base of customers was more vulnerable to competitors. In addition, the vision offers Enterasys the ability to differentiate its technology offering, leveraging the strengths developed over the last decade with custom silicon.
• Market Impact: Moderate on enterprise networking and data center infrastructure, as Enterasys is a smaller player and the segment targeted is not one that the larger vendors are aggressively targeting for both growth and market visibility. The small-to-medium enterprise (SME) is often overlooked, as it pertains to virtualization fabric messages, yet it is one of the most aggressive adopters of virtualization technology.
CLIENTS ONLY
Current Analysis Perspective
Competitive Strengths and Weaknesses
Response & Recommendations
Buyer Actions
Analytical Perspective
| Client access - Full report in Enterprise Networking | More information
Top
Top
|
 |
|
Current Analysis Offices
Washington, D.C. +1 703 404 9200, Toll free 877 787 8947
Paris, France +33 (0) 1 41 14 83 15
© 2012 Current Analysis Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy
|
|
Enterasys Announces OneFabric, First Network Fabric to Extend Beyond the Data Center for End-to-End Application Delivery
Innovative Approach Provides Simplicity, Scalability and Control from the Data Center to Mobile Edge
Andover, MA — Oct 17, 2011 – Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications Company, today announced its OneFabric architecture, the industry’s first unified network fabric to span from the data center to the wired and wireless edge. OneFabric allows enterprises to provision the network end-to-end with consistent performance and enhanced security for business-critical applications, all managed from a single pane of glass. OneFabric is an open and standards-based architecture that provides simplicity, scalability and control for complex IT environments, delivering a platform for reducing network tiers, flattening data center networks, and creating a more intelligent network infrastructure.
Enterasys will offer customers flexible entry points to deploy OneFabric without requiring a rip-and-replace of existing network infrastructure. Customers are able to identify their immediate infrastructure needs and implement one or more OneFabric solutions, including: OneFabric Data Center, OneFabric Edge, or OneFabric Security. Unlike competing fabric solutions, OneFabric is able to coexist with existing infrastructure investments while providing incremental value.
“Virtualization and distributed appliances are transforming every part of IT and to maximize the potential of virtualization, the network must also transform. Our new OneFabric architecture brings simplicity and scalability to the delivery of business-critical applications, particularly in virtualized environments.” said Chris Crowell, president and CEO at Enterasys Networks. “OneFabric redefines what constitutes a fabric by providing a single architecture that spans from the data center to the network edge, including wired, wireless, mobile and cloud. Furthermore, OneFabric provides one network environment, delivering one network experience, making predictable, reliable application delivery simple.”
OneFabric Control Center Provides Unified Management
Key to the OneFabric vision, Enterasys is also introducing OneFabric Control Center, unique in the industry in delivering a single pane of glass for the unified management of an end-to-end fabric, including deep integration with virtual infrastructure from VMware, Citrix and Microsoft to dramatically improve network performance in virtualized data centers.
“Our OneFabric deployment from Enterasys provides us with a secure, highly available network spanning our unified wired/wireless edge to the data center,” said Gaston Hebert, director of technical resources, St. Edwards University. “OneFabric Control Center provides us with ‘single pane of glass’ management enabling us to automate provisioning for users, devices and applications. This allows us to reduce the time it takes to deploy and support new systems and 21st Century learning tools. OneFabric is helping St. Edward’s achieve its goal to deliver a secure, open and collaborative environment for our students, faculty and staff around the globe.”
OneFabric Control Center, which is deployed as part of the initial customer implementation, becomes the unified management platform from which customers can manage both OneFabric and third-party network infrastructure. OneFabric Control Center also delivers key integration with VMware, Citrix, and Microsoft virtualization platforms to deliver automation, visibility and control across the virtual data center environment.
OneFabric from Enterasys allows customers to evolve to fabric-based networking for application delivery, offering the following benefits:
Reduced Complexity and Cost: Tight integration into the workflows of virtualization and storage teams deliver simplicity without compromise. The Enterasys unified architecture edge-to-data center architecture also reduces complex and wasteful layers of management overhead, simplifies application delivery based on common technology components from the data center to the edge, and delivers radically improved total cost of ownership.
Guaranteed IT Service Level Agreements (SLAs): As organizations move towards public/private clouds, scale out their virtualization deployments, and unify LAN/SAN solutions, network predictability and visibility often deteriorates. OneFabric makes it possible for IT to guarantee application delivery to the business, with infrastructure and tools to enable end-to-end automation across the entire network for consistent service provisioning and QoS.
Improved Operational Efficiency: It is no longer acceptable for IT to exist as a cost center. IT must achieve cost savings transferrable to the bottom line, where operational efficiency is a key metric. Customers who have adopted OneFabric have achieved network management efficiency gains of up to 90 percent.
“Enterprises need to think beyond the traditional silos of networking, storage and servers and take a holistic approach to their enterprise and data center network,” said Rohit Mehra, director, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, IDC. “With server virtualization and the issue of virtual machine (VM) sprawl, gone are the days when server teams didn’t need to interact with the networking group. Instead, IT organizations have to work collaboratively to ensure optimized application delivery, all the way from the virtual server to the mobile edge. Architectures such as OneFabric from Enterasys provide customers with solutions to these problems with consistent policy management and automation that spans from the data center to the mobile edge.”
Additional Supporting Quotes
“As we continued to virtualize our environment, while also becoming more highly mobile, we struggled to manage each virtual machine and device with its own set of provisioning and security requirements. Enterasys Data Center Manager, now integrated in OneFabric Control Center, provides us the automation necessary to appropriately provision and secure each device. Providing that level of automation and visibility across the entire network is imperative to manage the changing and ever-evolving nature of our network.”
- Michael Proft, IT director, University Hospital Leipzig
“Virtualization has redefined every part of IT over the past decade, except the network. For companies to fully leverage virtualization and maximize the ROI of this new era of IT, the network now must transform. The Enterasys OneFabric vision addresses not only the transformation of the data center network but addresses the needs of the end-to-end enterprise network. OneFabric will allow CIOs and IT managers to focus on optimizing user experience not just IT infrastructure.”
- Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst, ZK Research
