NEC Corporation of America (NEC) announced today that it will be demonstrating its ProgrammableFlow software defined networking (SDN) fabric for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V environments in Booth 18 at Microsoft TechEd North America 2012, to be held in Orlando on June 11-14. ProgrammableFlow, which recently earned the Grand Prize at Best of Interop, also has been named a category finalist for Best of TechEd North America.
NEC’s ProgrammableFlow network suite was the first commercially available SDN solution to leverage the OpenFlow protocol enabling complete network virtualization, allowing customers to easily deploy, control, monitor, and manage multi-tenant network infrastructure. This architecture delivers better utilization of all IT assets and helps provide ongoing investment protection as customers add functionality or upgrade their networks. NEC’s approach simplifies network administration and provides a programmable interface for unifying the deployment and management of network services with the rest of IT infrastructure.
“NEC’s ProgrammableFlow network suite will be one of the first OpenFlow-based SDN fabrics to operate in a Windows-based virtualized environment,” said Ian Carlson, director of Windows Server and Management at Microsoft. “Microsoft and NEC are building on our longstanding partnership to offer Windows Server 2012 customers greater VM mobility and the ability to apply integrated business policies across both the virtual and physical networks.”
Similar to the transformation hypervisors brought with server virtualization, the network virtualization delivered by the ProgrammableFlow SDN fabric can benefit enterprises dramatically – giving Windows Server customers a new option for building large, flat networks that streamline the management of datacenter networks through greater levels of automation while driving down operational costs and time to deliver business services. ProgrammableFlow networks for Windows environments are available now for customer evaluations and trials.
“The ProgrammableFlow network suite, which recently won the Grand Prize at Best of Interop 2012, is evolving to provide customers with a radically simplified, open and scalable network,” said Don Clark, Director of Business Development, IT Platform Technologies, NEC. “ProgrammableFlow 2.0 provides more control of network resources while maintaining interoperability with other OpenFlow compliant equipment, including bandwidth monitor, point and click network deployment and policy based multipath routing.”
ProgrammableFlow networks for Windows Server 2012 leverage the Hyper-V Extensible Switch application programming interface (API) to create a dynamic data center fabric allowing for unmatched ease of network management and increased performance across the network. With ProgrammableFlow, the entire network can be configured and monitored with one central point of control and network traffic can be visualized from end to end. For the first time, Hyper-V customers can fine-tune their network management and control with network-wide automated application of business policy, dynamically managed, and network level load balancing across multiple paths for more available bandwidth and faster network response.
The Best of TechEd (BOTE) North America Awards, produced by Windows IT Pro, SQL Server Pro, SharePoint Pro and Dev Pro, recognize the innovative products and services showcased at Microsoft TechEd North America 2012. A panel of editors from these publications will select a winner from each product award category and TechEd North America 2012 attendees will select the winner of the Attendees’ Pick Award by voting for their favorite product.
NEC will demonstrate the ProgrammableFlow network at NEC booth, #18, at TechEd, June 11-14 in Orlando. TechEd winners will be announced on June 14. For more information on TechEd, visit: http://northamerica.msteched.com.