Virtual Networking Catapulted into the Data Center

Most data centers have their servers pretty well virtualized. For others, there are myriad cables that network what is often a data center monstrosity, requiring lots of hands-on work to reconfigure these connections.

Microsoft IT consultancy Catapult Systems is itself now virtual, thanks to Netsocket’s Virtual Network (NVN), which now helps drive Catapult’s data center. As a result, Catapult is able to fire up remote offices with virtual network capability in no time flat.

“SDN solutions on the market today have primarily been focused on virtualizing network functionality within the data center and the metropolitan area network (MAN) – not the local area networks (LANs) and edge networking environments of enterprises and small to medium-sized businesses,” said Fletcher Hamilton, president and CEO of Netsocket. “NVN provides managed service providers with an extremely low risk and low cost path to try virtualized networking and prove-in the benefits for their business customers.”

Catapult’s fast growth prompted the need for a better way to launch new offices and get them fully equipped with networking.

Netsocket, meanwhile, is focused on virtualized, software-defined networking. It virtual network solution runs automation applications on top of fully virtualized network infrastructure.

The system, based on commodity x86 servers, is designed to be cost effective, and the units have been deployed in the main data center and major remote offices.

In fact, the NVNs were set up in less an hour.

So what is this NVN all about? Netsocket Virtual Network is a flexible, low-cost, centrally managed virtual network optimized for enterprise LAN and WAN edge network deployments. Deployed on commodity x86 servers, NVN significantly reduces the cost of deploying SDN.

 “Utilizing the NVN web-based GUI, I’ve been able to make adds and changes to the network within mere minutes,” said Joe Stocker, IT Director for Catapult.