Big Switch Expands Cloud-First Monitoring with Microsoft Azure


Big Monitoring Fabric to Integrate with Microsoft Azure Virtual Network Terminal Access Point

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Big Switch Networks, the Cloud-First Networking company, today announced it is one of the first Microsoft Azure ecosystem partners to offer an integrated solution for its new Azure Virtual Network Terminal Access Point (TAP). Big Monitoring Fabric – Public Cloud (BMF-PC) will integrate with Azure Virtual Network TAP APIs to offer customers a simple, secure and scalable solution to monitor workloads on Azure.

“With widespread adoption of Microsoft Azure, IT organizations need to monitor applications deployed in Azure, just as they monitor their on-premises applications,” said Prashant Gandhi, VP & Chief Product Officer, Big Switch Networks. “With BMF-PC for Azure, organizations are able to deploy a flexible, scalable and secure solution for flow- and packet-level monitoring for security, troubleshooting, and application performance of their Azure workloads. We are pleased to partner with Microsoft to bring this solution to market for organizations around the globe who leverage Azure.”

The Azure Virtual Network TAP feature allows organizations to enable mirroring of their virtual machine (VM) network traffic to a network packet broker (NPB), such as BMF-PC, via integration with the Virtual Network APIs. The integration with Azure Virtual Network TAP APIs makes this a turn-key solution, eliminating the need for custom scripts, agents, workflows, or specialized tools to monitor workloads in Azure. Additionally, BMF-PC offers a single pane of glass to easily monitor Azure applications, by providing a mechanism to selectively copy and filter packets from any of the VMs within Azure, and deliver them to third party tools in the cloud.

“Microsoft Azure Virtual Network TAP enables an ecosystem of partners providing cloud visibility solutions,” said Ross Ortega, Partner PM Manager of Azure networking at Microsoft. “We look forward to working with Big Switch to help our customers derive the benefits offered by the Big Monitoring Fabric-Public Cloud and Azure Virtual Network TAP solution."

The BMF-PC solution within Azure, consists of:

  • BMF Controller, an SDN-based controller which integrates with Azure Virtual Network APIs to configure the monitoring workflows
  • TAP aggregation virtual switches which receive the tunneled traffic from the Azure production VMs and performs advanced packet filtering
  • Analytics VM that provides deep analytics capabilities such as top talkers, anomaly detection etc.

Solution Benefits

  • Shared infrastructure to eliminate tool silos: Multiple organizations (e.g. security ops, network ops and compliance) can leverage the same BMF-PC - Azure monitoring infrastructure and can create monitoring policies depending on their access rights and roles to deliver traffic to the respective set of tools which eliminates the tool sprawl that often results as individual tools proliferate or as monitoring needs grow across multiple teams.
  • Local, dedicated, and secure: VNET-based NPB capabilities for centralized monitoring of all VMs in VNETs, within the user’s Azure account. Keeping traffic local enables reduced costs and security.
  • Single pane of glass management: BMF-PC Controller acts as a centralized and intuitive management pane for creating the entire monitoring workflow, including: selecting the Azure workloads to monitor, the rules for selective filtering and to define other packet functions, all the way up to the monitoring tools to deliver the packets.
  • On-demand scalability: Supports automatic and non-disruptive monitoring of new instances in the Azure network, made seamless with the on-demand, customer-defined horizontal scaling of virtual switches in the Azure VNET.
  • Integration with Big Switch’s Multi-Cloud Director for centralized hybrid cloud management across both Azure and on-prem environments

Big Monitoring Fabric-Public Cloud is a cloud-first NPB that enables dramatically simplified and scalable security and performance monitoring for workloads hosted on the Azure cloud. Powered by a software-defined controller, BMF-PC brings comprehensive packet/flow-level visibility to any organization’s Azure workloads. BMF-PC is also capable of advanced NPB features such as advanced packet filtering and analytics.

Supporting Materials
Product Page: Big Monitoring Fabric-Public Cloud
Partner Page: BMF-PC for Microsoft Azure
Data Sheet: Big Monitoring Fabric
Tech Demo: Big Monitoring Fabric-Public Cloud

About Big Switch Networks
Big Switch Networks is the Cloud-First Networking company, bringing public cloud-style networking and hybrid cloud consistency to organizations around the world. The company provides data center switching, monitoring, visibility and security solutions for on-premises enterprise cloud, public cloud and multi-cloud environments that enable companies of all sizes to increase operational efficiency and business agility, while reducing networking costs. Big Switch was founded in 2010, with roots in the original Stanford research team that invented software-defined networking. Big Switch has strategic partnerships with Dell EMC, HPE and Edgecore, delivering innovative software on industry-standard open networking hardware. Since its founding the company has been an active member and contributor to multiple open source communities. Big Switch Networks is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, with a dedicated presence across more than 25 countries. The company is funded from leading venture capital firms, including: Dell Technologies Capital, Index Ventures, Intel Capital, Khosla Ventures, MSD Capital, Morgenthaler Ventures, Redpoint and Silverlake Waterman.

For additional information: visit us www.bigswitch.com, reach us info@bigswitch.com or follow us on Twitter @bigswitch, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Copyright 2018 Big Switch Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Big Switch Networks, the Big Switch logo, Big Cloud Fabric, Big Mon, Big Monitoring Fabric, BMF, BigSecure, Big Switch Labs, Big Tap, BSN,  Switch Light, ONLX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Big Switch Networks, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks, service marks, registered marks or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners. Big Switch Networks assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracies in this document. Big Switch Networks reserves the right to change, modify, transfer or otherwise revise this publication without notice.

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