Product Overview of Pluribus Networks
Pluribus Networks is a pioneering company in the field of software-defined networking (SDN) and cloud networking, offering a robust and unified networking solution designed to simplify, modernize, and automate network operations.
What Pluribus Networks Does
Pluribus Networks delivers an open, controllerless SDN fabric tailored for modern data centers, multi-site data centers, and distributed cloud edge environments. Their technology integrates the functionality of high-performance servers and switches, creating a unified network fabric that enhances programmability, automation, and integration.
Key Features and Functionality
Unified Cloud Fabric
The core of Pluribus Networks’ solution is the Unified Cloud Fabric (or Adaptive Cloud Fabric), which provides a fully automated underlay and virtualized overlay. This fabric ensures comprehensive visibility, brownfield interoperability, and optimized delivery of rich, highly secure per-tenant services across data center sites without any single point of failure.
Netvisor Operating System
The Linux-based Netvisor® ONE operating system is the backbone of Pluribus Networks’ technology. It enables a highly programmable and automated network environment, allowing for direct communication with the hardware components of the switches, thereby enhancing performance and efficiency.
Controllerless Architecture
Pluribus Networks operates on a controllerless SDN architecture, eliminating the need for a centralized controller. Instead, each node in the cluster maintains a peer-to-peer relationship, using a three-phase commit process to ensure that all nodes are synchronized with any changes, preventing partial rollbacks and ensuring consistency across the network.
Automation and Programmability
The platform is built with comprehensive automation in mind, featuring one-touch fabric-wide provisioning and the integration of underlay, overlay, and services. This automation reduces the complexity of network operations and minimizes the potential for human error.
Pervasive Visibility and Analytics
Pluribus Networks offers advanced analytics capabilities through its UNUM Insight Analytics module. This allows for real-time and stored analytics, enabling the recording and analysis of network traffic without the need for separate monitoring fabrics or taps. This feature provides detailed visibility into every application and flow, ensuring wire-speed performance and optimal network quality.
Distributed Security
The solution includes robust security features such as micro-segmentation, granular policy enforcement, and encryption. These features are designed to enhance security across distributed clouds and network environments.
Open Networking
Pluribus Networks promotes open networking by leveraging open disaggregated hardware and software. This approach allows customers to choose from a variety of DPUs (Data Processing Units) and switches, reducing vendor lock-in and enabling significant cost savings (up to 30-60% over traditional vendors).
Multi-Site and Multi-Tenant Support
The platform supports multi-site data center unification, leaf and spine data center fabrics, and multi-tenant network services. This includes capabilities such as network slicing, edge computing, IoT traffic segmentation, and L2VPN/L3VPN across distributed sites.
UNUM Management Portal
The UNUM™ web management portal provides a user-friendly interface for managing the network fabric. It includes modules such as UNUM Fabric Manager for provisioning and management, and UNUM Insight Analytics for detailed network analysis.
In summary, Pluribus Networks offers a sophisticated, unified, and highly automated networking solution that simplifies network operations, enhances security and visibility, and reduces costs, making it an ideal choice for modern data centers and distributed cloud environments.