Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
3.
With a distributed switch selected on the left, click the Manage tab, select Settings,
and then click Topology. This will display a graphical representation of the distributed
switch.
4.
Select an existing distributed port group by clicking its name in the Topology view, and
then click the Edit Distributed Port Group Settings icon.
5.
Select Security from the list of policy options on the left side of the dialog box.
6.
Make the necessary adjustments to the security policy.
7.
Click OK to save the changes.
If you need to make the same security-related change to multiple distributed port groups,
you can use the Manage Distributed Port Groups command on the Actions menu to perform the
same coni guration task to multiple distributed port groups at the same time.
Managing the security of a virtual network architecture is much the same as managing
the security for any other portion of your information systems. Security policy should dictate
that settings be coni gured as secure as possible to err on the side of caution. Only with proper
authorization, documentation, and change-management processes should security be reduced.
In addition, the reduction in security should be as controlled as possible to affect the least num-
ber of systems if not just the systems requiring the adjustments.
We'll close out this chapter on networking with a quick look ahead at the future of network-
ing in a VMware vSphere environment.
Looking Ahead
The past few years have been fairly tumultuous for the networking industry, which is under-
going a revolution comparable to the revolution of some years ago when server virtualization
started seeing broader adoption. A number of forces are driving this revolution: increased use of
open-source software in various industries; increased competition among hardware manufac-
turers, including very low-cost overseas manufacturers; expanded use of x86-based systems and
compute virtualization for providing network services (often referred to as network functions
virtualization, or NFV); and the rise of control plane protocols like OpenFlow. This latter force
has given rise to an entirely new term within networking:
software
-
dei ned
networking
(
SDN
).
In March 2013, VMware described its vision for
network
virtualization
, which harnesses a
number of these macro trends together to enable organizations to provision network services
more quickly and in a more automated fashion than before. VMware intends to bring network
virtualization to the market in the form of VMware NSX, a product that integrates technologies
together from Nicira's Network Virtualization Platform and VMware's own vCloud Networking
and Security product suite.
VMware NSX will leverage a number of technologies to enable organizations to create virtual
networks—networks that exist entirely in software but that faithfully re-create physical net-
works. The following technologies are among those that will be found in VMware NSX:
Network overlay protocols like VXLAN, STT, and GRE, to enable isolation of network
trafi c
◆
Separation of the control plane and data plane using protocols like OpenFlow
◆
