PLEXXI CONNECT. Event-based Workflow Automation For 3rd Platform Data Center Networks

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1 PLEXXI CONNECT DATA SHEET Event-based Workflow Automation For 3rd Platform Data Center Networks FEATURING Achieve full IT DevOps automation by extending event-based workflows into the network infrastructure Leverage Plexxi-built integration packs to transparently automate network response to compute/storage operations Utilize existing community built ChatOps and DevOps automation integrations with popular tools»» Create customized automations with a simple trigger/action mechanism for any business critical process Cloud Service Providers and Enterprise IT organizations are heavily investing in tools and processes that help drive automation of the infrastructure. Creating efficient and scalable private and public cloud infrastructures requires high levels of automation, to reduce cost and error rates, and to help IT focus on delivering services to their constituents rather than managing boxes. Event-based workflow automation simplifies the process by moving the focus from complex, inter-dependent scripts to a model where the automation team can focus on identifying events (triggers) and crafting the specific response to those events (actions). Plexxi Connect provides customers with an event-based workflow automation platform to drive the Plexxi network fabric. Coupled with Plexxi-supported and Community-supported Integration Packs, Plexxi Connect provides a complete out-of-the-box automation solution for popular cloud, DevOps/ ChatOps, converged infrastructure and storage solutions. In addition, customers can leverage the powerful Connect platform to develop their own workflows custom designed to meet the needs of their own environments. PLEXXI, INC DATA SHEET: PLEXXI CONNECT 1

2 Plexxi Connect, combined with network orchestration from Plexxi Control and a dynamic network fabric comprised of Plexxi Switches, creates a complete solution for Cloud Builders looking to easily build, operate, and scale public and private cloud infrastructures. Automated and manual workloadlevel control can be achieved providing the following benefits: Increased service agiliy: Accomplish faster deployment of new services and seamless adds, moves and changes to existing services. Improved resource utilization: Achieve truly elastic pools of compute, storage and network resources. Reduce complexity: Eliminate silos, reduce training needs, and improve the time-to-value for the service consumer. Positively impact business economics: Reduce OpEx/CapEx and increase productivity and revenue generation Event-based Workflow Automation DEV OPS AUTOMATION CLOUD OS CONVERGED NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE INTEGRATION ORCHESTRATION MANAGEMENT BIG DATA VDI Plexxi s fabric solution is built from-the-ground-up to be fully integrated with datacenter infrastructure, application and workload orchestration systems. Through an open source, event driven automation platform, Plexxi Connect provides both the integration platform as well as a set of Plexxi-developed integration packs. Integration packs automate workflows based on the included sensors, actions and triggers for 3rd party orchestration systems. Following an If This Then That (IFTTT) model, Plexxi Connect can provision, configure or optimize one or many Plexxi network fabrics in real time, by reacting to events from these 3rd party systems without the need for user intervention. PLEXXI, INC DATA SHEET: PLEXXI CONNECT 2

3 Plexxi Connect, in conjunction with Plexxi Control, Plexxi Switches, and a wide range of 3rd party tools and products enables zero touch operations throughout the Plexxi network fabric. The network becomes responsive to the data, applications and storage workloads deployed in the data center. This vastly improves operational efficiency over traditional approaches to deploying and supporting public and private clouds, which can be slow, tedious and error prone. Open Integration Platform Plexxi Connect provides customers with a fully functional Open Integration Platform. At its base, the platform provides support of open source packs for many DevOps, ChatOps and IT orchestration systems. Plexxi actions and sensors enable custom workflows to be easily created through the process of tying sensor-provided data to actions taken. With sensor and action support for tools and platforms like Splunk, Amazon Web Services, Puppet, Chef, Docker, Nagios and others, automating common network interactions becomes a breeze. Automation of path optimization, new hosts or virtual machines provisioning, and network security actions (based on analysis of threat detection systems) can be easily accomplished. This speeds time-to-deployment, reduces support costs, and provides workload optimization across the Plexxi network fabric. Plexxi Connect provides a simple and easy-toprogram integration platform to supercharge network operations. Workflow Automation PLEXXI CONNECT OPEN INTEGRATION PLATFORM BIG DATA VDI INFRASTRUCTURE WORKLOAD DEV OPS & CHAT OPS Workflow Fabric (Logic & Interfaces) Fabric Control & Management, per Workload or per Flow Workflow Responsive, Multi-purpose Switching Fabric Integration Plane Control Plane Data Plane LegalNetworks Compute/Storage Hosts External Networks Plexxi Connect includes a suite of Plexxi-oriented workflow automations for completing many day-to-day operations within the Plexxi fabric, including standard configuration tasks such as: Adding and deleting VLANs, assigning VLANs to ports Creating and deleting Link Aggregation Groups (LAG) Toggling a switch Port admin state Enabling/disabling LLDP Adding/Deleting IP subnets PLEXXI, INC DATA SHEET: PLEXXI CONNECT 3

4 In addition, Plexxi Connect provides automation actions for advanced Plexxi fabric operations such as Visualization of 3rd party connected elements (to the Plexxi fabric) Automatic on-demand network fabric optimization Automatic traffic isolation by using specific paths across the Plexxi fabric Plexxi Connect includes events, triggers and orchestration rules that understand the state of the Plexxi fabric and can be presented to business logic, allowing a closed loop automation with many 3rd party tools. Integration Packs Plexxi offers Integration Packs for several 3rd party IT orchestration systems. Integration Packs consists of Plexxi Connect with specific logic for tools such as VMware vcenter, Nutanix Prism, and Hortonworks Ambari (Hadoop manager). Based on discovery of managed elements within each of these orchestration systems, these pre-packaged fully tested and supported Integration Packs provide workflows ranging in functionality from dynamic network provisioning to automated network optimization. Plexxi Connect Integration Packs enable a next generation data center to be: Simple: Automates discovery and dynamic configuration and provisioning of IT infrastructure Transparent: Creates an invisible infrastructure, using the native orchestration tool UI as the primary user interface Efficient: Streamlines processes with workflows that span storage, compute and network Application Defined: Understands data, storage and application workload relationships as well as SLA requirements while orchestrating the IT infrastructure for multi-purpose workloads Plexxi also provides Super Packs. Super Packs are bundled Integration Packs targeting a specific environment. PLEXXI, INC DATA SHEET: PLEXXI CONNECT 4

5 Plexxi Connect Platform Plexxi Connect is the integration platform residing between a Plexxi Fabric (Plexxi Switch, Plexxi Control and 3rd party tools). It provides the means by which Plexxi s dynamic and elastic fabric can adjust in real-time to data, application and storage workload performance, and security requirements. Plexxi Connect is offered in two editions, Enterprise and DevOps, that include fully automated closed loop event handling and advanced capabilities. Plexxi Connect is offered as a self contained ISO (operating Centos 7) or Virtual Machine OVA, and can be installed in both virtual and physical host environments. Recommended system resources: 2 CPU cores INTEGRATION PACK Application-specific Integration Focused on Workload SLA and Managment Automation Cloud & Converged Infrastructure OpenStack Simplivity Nutanix Big Data & Analytics Informatica MapR Cloudera Storage Nimble VSAN Scale10 8GB Memory Monthly License fee vsphere Web Client vsan 50GB disk SUPER PACK vcenter NSX Bundled Pack of Integrations Targeting a Specific Environment Monthly License fee PACK LITE Visibility Ops & Security Embotics VMTurbo Elastic Portal & NOC Ubersmith SFDC Egenera Dev Ops & Chat Ops Puppet Ansible Jira Baseline Discovery and Configuration Automation Included with Connect Enterprise Purchase Plexxi Connect can be managed through a web based graphical user interface. Through this interface, administrators can manage integration packs, authentication mechanisms and monitor the overall operation of the Plexxi Connect platform. PLEXXI, INC DATA SHEET: PLEXXI CONNECT 5

6 Ordering Information Plexxi Connect is available in as a yearly software subscription option. All subscription models include software support and maintenance. The Enterprise edition of Plexxi Connect provides standard functionality and is a required platform to run any Plexxi provided automation packs. The Developer edition of Plexxi Connects adds full developer support and documentation to the Enterprise edition, for those customers that intend to develop their own automation packs using Plexxi Connect. PX-SW-CNCT-ENT-1YR Plexxi Connect Enterprise Edition, 1 Year subscription PX-SW-CNCT-DEV-1YR Plexxi Connect Developer Edition, 1 Year subscription Learn More To learn more about Plexxi products and services, contact your Plexxi sales representative or visit The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. Plexxi, the Plexxi logo and Plexxi HCN are trademarks of Plexxi Inc. Other company, product or service names are trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. 100 Innovative Way, Suite 3322 Nashua, NH PLEX (7539) Plexxi.com