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Cisco Catalyst Switching Customers Benefit From Network Virtualization Features

Wednesday, 10 May 2006 by Michel Roth

As companies expand to become global organizations, partner with others, and comply with regulatory rules, their networking needs become more complex. With the Cisco Systems network virtualization features available in Cisco Catalyst switches, High Tech Campus Eindhoven, Rice University and the Zurich Airport operator Unique were able to partition their campus networks with increased security to deliver customized services to employees, partners, and public visitors while reducing complexity and cost.

Cisco Catalyst Switching Series supports the Cisco Service Oriented Network Architecture (SONA) framework with network virtualization capabilities that enable network managers to partition a single physical network into many logical networks across multiple locations, increasing scalability of the network. Network virtualization uses tunneling and segmenting technologies to evolve beyond current virtual local area networks (LANs). In the past, enterprise network managers had to deploy multiple physical networks with redundant services to meet the needs of diverse groups accessing the network within the enterprise. With the Catalyst network virtualization features, various networks can be collapsed into a single physical enterprise network that scales to meet diverse business users requirements. For example, network virtualization is particularly useful for an outsourced consulting workforce, and for suppliers and customers that need access to certain data on the enterprise network and regulatory compliance.

Network virtualization can be achieved with three simple steps: Access Control, Path Isolation and Policy Enforcement. A number of different technologies are available on the Catalyst 6500 Series Switches to enable each step such as: NAC (Network Admission Control) and Identity Based Networking Services for access control, VRF-lite (Virtual Route Forwarding), GRE Tunnels (Generic Route Encapsulation) and MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) for path isolation, as well as, integrated services modules for policy enforcement. These solutions preserve the benefits of today's campus design while introducing the capability of partitioning the network into highly secure, virtual networks by overlaying partition mechanisms onto the existing LAN.

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