Big Switch Networks vs VMware NSX comparison

Big Switch Networks is at the forefront of the next-generation of networking technologies. By combining industry standard switch hardware (“white box / branded white box “brite box”) with intelligent SDN control software, the company is delivering next-generation data center networking fabrics for the world’s most advanced data centers looking to achieve unmatched degrees of network automation at cloud-competitive price points.

Big Switch Networks has two data center networking solutions: Big Cloud Fabric, a data center switching fabric for OpenStack clouds or VMware virtualization environments, and Big Monitoring Fabric, a network packet broker that enables pervasive security and security, monitoring data center traffic for inline or out-of-band deployments. Big Switch is taking three key technologies: vendor agnostic switch hardware, SDN control software, and core-and-pod data center designs –and leveraging them for use in next-generation data center switching and monitoring solutions designed for use in enterprises, cloud providers, and service providers.

All Big Switch solutions run on high-performance open networking switches from Accton or Dell Technologies and leverage centralized SDN controller software for fabric-wide control and management. Big Switch Networks has two solutions:

VMware NSX is a full-stack network and security virtualization platform that enables the virtual cloud network. NSX provides a software-defined process for networking that expands throughout cloud frameworks, data centers, and application structures. Users can join and secure applications within their container and multi-cloud infrastructure and their data center. With robust automated provisioning, the platform offers dynamic flexibility and scalability without compromising on network speed or agility.

VMware NSX recreates the whole software network model so that users can create and deliver apps quickly and securely. Users can customize security policies and leverage IDS/IPS to block against lateral threats. These security policies can be managed throughout private and public clouds from one pane of glass, no matter where your applications run. By consolidating networking and security tasks into a unified platform, users can save up to one-third of their budget.

VMware NSX Use Cases

VMware NSX brings the operational model of a virtual machine to users’ data center networks and revolutionizes the foundations of network and security operations. There are a number of use cases, including:

• Containers - Similar to VMs, users can offer unified, full-stack networking and security for microservices and containerized apps. This includes the ability to micro-segment, use container networking for Kubernetes, and offers complete visibility for microservices.

• App Delivery - Users can deliver infrastructure as code while also accelerating app delivery with blueprints that can automate the management of security and networking resources.

• Security - With zero-trust security in public and private cloud environments, users can reduce attacks, lock down critical apps, and design a logical DMZ in software.

• Load Balancing - Users can update their data centers from legacy load balancers to software load balancers and SDN automation, creating savings of over 50%.

• Multi-Cloud - Expand networking across clouds and streamline multi-cloud operations with multi-cloud use cases, including rapid workload mobility, seamless data center extension, and multi-DC pooling.

Reviews from Real Users

Through a policy-driven approach, VMware NSX provides VMware technologies to assist with network and security visualization in a unified solution. Users particularly like the distributed firewall and the management dashboard.

Kolawole O., a systems engineer at a tech services company, writes, "NSX's stand-out function is the distributed firewall. The firewall system is just top-notch, and I haven't seen another solution like it."

A head of business development and partners management at a comms service provider notes, "I really like the management dashboard, the tailor-made assurance, the telemetry, and the ease of integration with all other solutions of VMware, such as vSphere."