HP Virtual Application Networks

On May 30, 2012 the HP company provided new technology which provides automated management of applications, networks and users on a basis the politician — without tiresome manual adjustment — and allows to unroll applications in a few minutes.

Result of cooperation of HP with F5 company, the leader in the market of means Application Delivery Networking (ADN), were solutions which — for the first time — could integrate control functions in the IT industries applications and network to provide the level of flexibility necessary for the customer and performance to go to cloud computing. As a single system of management the HP solution of Intelligent Management Center acts.

In new solutions the technology of HP Virtual Application Networks which allows to virtualize and automate configurations of network infrastructure and also ADN technology from F5 which executes similar transactions for applications in network is used.

"Many existing networks are static, insufficiently flexible and require too many manual transactions for implementation of cloud applicaions and services — Joe Skorupa, the vice president and the leading analyst of Gartner says. — Implementation of the automated solutions for management of networks, applications and users on a basis the politician will help to accelerate considerably deployment of new applications and also to minimize quantity of the potential problems caused by errors of administrators when configuring in the manual mode".

Deployment of applications in modern DPC can take months if to configure devices manually, one behind another. Similarly, setup of applications will demand up to several weeks for carrying out thin settings of profiles of different users. When using "manual work" implementation of new network in standard DPC can demand input more than 250,000 command lines (!) and also accomplishment more than 100,000 actions for configuring of the accompanying applications. Certainly, all this process will take away a lot of time and also will be inevitably followed by the errors caused by "a human factor".

As the IT industry actively develops towards cloud and other dynamic computing environments, methods of setup of networks and applications in the manual mode quickly become outdated.

"IT systems should not "lag behind in development" business, however this development is slowed down by outdated approaches to management of networks, applications and users — Bethany Mayer, the senior vice president and the head of department of HP Networking says. — Thanks to the HP solution of Virtual Application Networks and our cooperation with F5 company today clients of HP have an opportunity to virtualize and automate all process of configuring — from management of applications and networks before management of users, on the basis of management of politicians and also to reduce time of implementation of cloud applicaions to several minutes, but not months or even weeks".

Transformation of the IT industry by means of HP Virtual Application Networks and F5 ADN

The HP solution of Virtual Application Networks is presented by a possibility of complete vision of network of the enterprise, helps to transform physical network to the flexible programmable multi-user, adapted for requirements of applications virtual. Supporting the software technologies of management of networks developed on the basis of open standards, such as HP OpenFlow, the HP solution of Virtual Application Networks the politician by application of the special templates containing requirements of the unrolled applications automates setup of network on a basis.

The solution F5 ADN ensures safety, high performance and availability of applications in network environments. This technology is integrated with infrastructure of networks and servers for automation, virtualization and management of all aspects of processes of deployment of applications on different devices.

HP solutions and F5 were tested on the example of deployment of Microsoft® Exchange 2010 on virtual servers and in the mode of disaster recovery. Deployment took minutes while the capacity of virtual machines increased much. (1)

Advantages include:

• reduction of load time of information for users, reduction of spam by 70%, increase in efficiency of administrators by 33% at increase in security of network for Microsoft Exchange 2010;
• an opportunity to release up to 40% of server resources, to increase density of placement of virtual machines by 60% and to increase performance of applications to three times for virtualization of servers;
• effective disaster recovery thanks to acceleration of transfer of virtual machines between DPC — from 20 minutes to 38 seconds.

Effective management of personal devices in a business environment

In 60% of the modern companies there are no control facilities behind the mobile devices connected to corporate network. HP and F5 companies propose solutions which simplify adaptation of corporate networks to the movement "Bring the Device for Work" gaining popularity (Bring Your Own Device - BYOD) thanks to positive control of authentication of users and devices and also implementation of access control to applications in network.

The new solution of HP BYOD uses F5 ADN technology and offers a single platform for access control and management of connections of the user devices to corporate network.

New services of HP for applications in data processing centers

New solutions of HP of Network Infrastructure Optimization Services help to estimate traffic and infrastructure of DPC to define possible bottlenecks and to provide high-quality service of users.

The division of HP of Technology Services offers services in assessment and optimization of network infrastructure (HP Network Infrastructure Optimization Assessment), management of delivery of applications for environments of Microsoft and HP (HP Network Application Delivery Controller Services for Microsoft and HP Data Center) and optimization of network infrastructure in DPC (HP Data Center Network Optimization Services). These services and services cover all network topology — from the central DPC to departments and branches in other cities — and help to improve considerably work of network infrastructure and to accelerate deployment of applications.

The HP ServiceONE program opens new sources of income for partners

The program of HP ServiceONE Partner Support for Networking allows the qualified partners of HP to increase income level in the field of network technologies, offering the customers of service of HP and her partners. She turns on all necessary expert resources of HP for training and sales, helping certified partners to implement services of design, management and support of networks with success.

Further development of the solution

HP Virtual Application Networks is the industry-first "open" technology programmatically the configured network (SDN - Software-Defined Network) providing uniform management of the IT different levels: from a core infrastructure to the level of business applications. The product helps the companies and to suppliers of cloud services to increase flexibility of an IT environment, beginning from the central DPC and the headquarters and finishing remote departments and branches, the press service of the company reported in release of October 11, 2012.

SDN technologies the controllers created within the strategy of HP of Virtual Application Networks and including, applications, services and the solutions SDN, allow to cover all levels of IT infrastructure of the company. They separate the level of management from the level of physical infrastructure, automate network functioning for increase in its scalability and flexibility, simplify deployment of applications and services.

"During an era of cloud computing clients need the uniform point of management of all network allowing to provide in several minutes to the user all applications and services necessary for it — noted Bethany Mayer, the senior vice president and the head of department of HP Networking. — HP is the only supplier capable to offer the customer the comprehensive SDN platform with a uniform panel for setup of the equipment, programs and applications from DPC to desktop computers".

Increase in flexibility of networks

The HP corporation industry-first offered the SDN technologies covering everything three basic levels of IT (infrastructure, managing software and applications).

Infrastructure level

The HP SDN technology provides "open" programmable access to infrastructure through OpenFlow — the network protocol used for automation of setup of the equipment.

The new functionality of SDN for the level of infrastructure simplifies the procedure of setup of network. Provided to HP nine new models of switches with support of architecture of HP FlexNetwork through OpenFlow and the flexible programmable interface on the basis of industry standards. The new HP 3800 models which complemented with themselves the existing line of switches of HP make the company the leader in the market of network solutions (the set base of ports with support of OpenFlow exceeded 15 million pieces).

Level of management

The new Virtual Application Networks SDN Controller HP controller separates the physical equipment from a logical structure, providing the centralized representation and automatic adjustment of all devices in network. Now administrators should not enter thousands of code lines in the command line, so, they can easily both just program the network environment and unroll the automated applications. Besides, the controller offers API interfaces for third-party application developers.

Level of applications

Software of HP of Virtual Cloud Networks helps suppliers to deliver the automated and scalable cloud services, and to the companies — to create the isolated virtual cloud network environments providing full control over release of new services and applications.

Software of HP of Sentinel Security automates network access control and protection against invasions, using already existing hardware switches with OpenFlow support. Result — lack of need for acquisition of expensive and difficult network devices in management and an opportunity to provide flexible protection, including in environments with virtualization.