PLUMgrid Reinvents SDN Visualization and Monitoring for OpenStack Clouds

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- PLUMgrid, a leader in secure and scalable software-defined networking (SDN) for OpenStack^®  clouds, today announced availability of PLUMgrid CloudApex™, a cloud network visualization platform that displays the real-time status of both physical and virtual resources in OpenStack clouds to help data center engineers manage the vast number of virtual resources in scale-out data centers while minimizing downtime.

CloudApex, built with patent-pending technology, combines built-in analytics and alerts to help cloud engineers and operators proactively identify and act on emerging issues across both compute and network resources in an OpenStack cloud environment, integrating them into a unified graphical view. It offers a significantly more intuitive and comprehensive real-time approach to monitoring than traditional, linear format monitoring tools currently on the market.

"Until today, visualization tools have been primarily based on tables and focused on individual components of the network. They've provided no correlation across different layers of the solution," said Sushil Singh, Chief Architect and Co-Founder at PLUMgrid. "As a result, even in smaller networks, it has been a challenge to spot and troubleshoot operational and security issues. CloudApex uniquely addresses this challenge by providing a simple, intuitive monitoring platform that offers real-time visualization and correlation of both physical and virtual network resources."

CloudApex works in conjunction with PLUMgrid Open Networking Suite (ONS) for OpenStack, and monitors selective 3rd party virtual and physical assets across OpenStack, hypervisors, and servers. Together, CloudApex speeds network deployment, helps with everyday operations at scale, and minimizes production outages. Key features include:

• Affinity-based Graphical User Interface
  CloudApex graphically displays the tight relationship between virtual and physical resources for OpenStack deployments. Its affinity-based graphical user interface provides a clear, intuitive and easy-to-understand correlation of these resources in a single pane of glass for operations teams. In contrast, legacy monitoring tools focus only on individual components with rows and columns of text in tabular formats, requiring time-consuming manual correlation of data to spot a problem and then take corresponding remedial action.
  
  
• Self-Organizing Health Status
  CloudApex is designed to correlate virtual and physical resources, while organizing and showing the health of these resources. With self-organizing health status, CloudApex renders data in real-time for an accurate display of overall virtual machine and network status. This health status allows operators to define health thresholds, providing complete flexibility and control. Since CloudApex uses real-time in-line data collected by IO Visor running in each compute node, operators can be ensured that the health status delivers the highest accuracy for proactive management of data center assets.
  
  
• Comprehensive Diagnostics
  Unlike products that are built on agents or use sampled flow data, CloudApex features an in-kernel framework that provides real-time in-line data collected across a fully distributed infrastructure. CloudApex provides highly accurate data, and is built with a modular architecture that enables the monitoring of data center assets seamlessly.

CloudApex will be available for technical preview in 4Q15 with general availability in 1Q16. For more information on CloudApex or sign up to participate in the technical preview, please visit here.

Supporting Quotes
"As OpenStack moves into mainstream production environments, intuitive and simple to use visualization and monitoring tools are needed to manage OpenStack clouds. As a best-in-class cloud builder, Awnix has partnered with PLUMgrid on SDN and we are excited to see PLUMgrid taking a whole new approach to monitoring with CloudApex. From the unique GUI design that depicts the correlation between virtual and physical assets to the contextual cloud-wide search, CloudApex will fill a gaping hole for operations teams, and we are looking forward to deploying it with PLUMgrid Open Networking Suite."
— Mike Meskill, CTO of Awnix Inc.

"Operationalizing OpenStack clouds requires monitoring platforms that correlate and display virtual and physical resources. Managing thousands of virtual machines and hundreds of compute nodes is challenging, so being able to see the health status at a glance will significantly simplify monitoring to prevent issues early before they escalate into downtime. With CloudApex, PLUMgrid is enabling operational effectiveness and addressing a key need for OpenStack cloud builders."
— Shamus McGillicuddy, senior analyst, Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.

PLUMgrid at OpenStack Summit Tokyo
PLUMgrid will showcase CloudApex and its award-winning Open Networking Suite (ONS) SDN solutions at OpenStack Summit Tokyo from October 27-29, 2015. Visit PLUMgrid at booth #T69 to see demos and consult with on-site experts.

About PLUMgrid Open Networking Suite (ONS) for OpenStack
PLUMgrid ONS for OpenStack is a comprehensive software suite that enables secure and scalable virtual network infrastructure. Deployed by service providers and enterprises in more than 70 OpenStack clouds, PLUMgrid ONS provides terabits of scale out performance, production grade resiliency and secure multi-tenancy for hybrid data centers. Built on PLUMgrid Platform^®and IO Visor^® technology, the software suite lets users create private Virtual Domains to provide isolation, security and policy enforcement across tenants. Designated as OpenStack Compatible by the OpenStack Foundation, PLUMgrid ONS supports industry's broadest set of OpenStack distributions and installers including Huawei Compass, Mirantis OpenStack, Rackspace Private Cloud, RDO, Red Hat OpenStack, and Ubuntu OpenStack by Canonical.

About PLUMgrid
PLUMgrid is the leader of secure and scalable virtual network infrastructure solutions for OpenStack clouds. PLUMgrid delivers industry leading software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) solutions that enable modern data centers to connect tenants, applications and workloads efficiently across hypervisors, virtualized, container and bare metal architectures. PLUMgrid is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and is funded by venture capital and strategic investors. Visit www.plumgrid.com, read the PLUMgrid blog and follow the company on Twitter @PLUMgrid.

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