May 12, 2017

Claynet

ClayNet

Network planning and design have always been a tedious and time consuming exercise. In spite of all the efforts from network designers, it’s hard to guarantee the resilience and stability of network architecture from day one. Sometimes it takes months together to fine tune the network after deployment for stable operations. Needless to say that it’s almost impossible to anticipate all scenarios of fiber cuts and node failures etc.

Now imagine the power to deploy and test a large scale network in a matter of hours in the convenience of your Lab with ability to test all possible scenarios at a click of a button. ClayNet makes this possible. ClayNet is a network virtualization tool which allows for realization of large scale networks using Nivetti’s routing and switching NFV technology. ClayNet also allows for inclusion of virtual compute elements like Servers to run services like DHCP, DNS, RADIUS etc. to emulate end-to-end network scenario. The routing, switching and compute elements provide a Lego like graphical setup which allows network designers to realize complex network topologies in a matter of hours and test the robustness of design against link cuts, node failures, topology/configuration changes etc. ClayNet also provides an ideal devops platform for testing new configurations, new releases etc before pushing them onto production network.

Features

  • Highly intuitive web based GUI for centralized topology management of multiple topologies
  • Web-Scale architecture, supports scale out deployment for large scale networks
  • Access controlled multi-user support which allows for creation of various collaborative exercises
  • Supports adding:
    • network elements like routers, switches and firewalls
    • compute elements like servers and desktops
  • Simultaneous management of multiple topologies which can be either manually created or imported
  • Existing topologies can archived for export to other deployments as a simple configuration file
  • Virtual Device Management: GUI provides ability to add/delete and monitor states of various devices and links
  • ClayNet comes with a custom traffic generator which can be fed with custom PCAP files for internal traffic generation.
  • Traffic Flow Monitoring: Traffic visualization feature on GUI allows for tracking of traffic flow paths
  • Topology Canvas provides Zoom-in and Zoom-out facility which helps in managing a large network topologies.
  • Zoom out provides a big picture view of entire topology whereas Zoom-in helps get to the details at subnet and node level
  • Loaded with text markers and highlighters, GUI provides easy mechanism to represent various network segments and sections
  • Virtual Device access: The virtual device can be accessed using the same mechanisms as real world devices
    • Routers & Switches: SSH, CLI, SNMP (Browser based SSH can be initiated from the GUI itself)
    • Servers & Desktop: SSH, Remote Desktop
  • Owing to it’s web scale architecture, ClayNet provides unmatched scalability to build networks from tens of node to hundreds of nodes depending upon the availability of compute infrastructure.
  • ClayNet also supports virtualization of popular third party routers and switches for which virtual  devices are supported by the respective OEMs (licensing terms will be in accordance with the OEM’s licensing policy)
  • ClayNet provides a flexible model for compute infrastructure where user can create virtual server or desktop compute nodes with either Linux based or Windows based OS. (licensing for Windows based desktop and servers will be in accordance with Microsoft’s licensing policy)
  • Virtual Compute infrastructure can use the virtual network infra to interconnect with each other.
  • ClayNet allows for a easy backup and restore mechanism for both network and compute nodes
  • Real-world interfacing: ClayNet provides ability to connect the virtual network to real-world network using the NIC cards installed on the ClayNet servers. This allows for traffic flow between the virtual and physical network
  • The physical network connectivity allows for connecting ClayNet virtual networks to be connected to internet also. This provides for easy installation of different applications on compute nodes including OS upgrades etc.
  • Compute nodes running applications can communicate with each other in a seamless and transparent manner as in physical networks
  • ClayNet emulated links support creation of various network scenarios like fiber cut, BER on the link, latency, packet drops etc.

For more information contactus@nivettisystems.in