What the heck is Network as a Service (NaaS)?
Wait I know… it is one of those catchy new jargons that the marketing people use.
Actually, they will; someday.
Right now though I am referring to the idea that what was done for compute, virtualization, can be done for networking. Think quickly of how networking is tied to the physical.
If you want to add a new server to your datacenter… You have to rack it, power it, and connect it to the physical network. Imagine that server is virtual… Now you just have to wire the network to the host, then connect the virtual machine to that physical network.
Take it a step further.
You create the server, then you connect it to the logical network.
Logical network? Yes.
A network that is defined by software, managed by software, and is agile like software.
Want to move that virtual machine to a new datacenter? Take your network and virtual machine with you.
This is the next big thing for datacenters, networking and virtualization. Sure over a decade ago servers started to get virtualized. Now what is one of the last things to hold a machine to the physical world? Networking.
While details, methods and the nitty-gritty is still being worked out… just think of the possibilities.
I am sure I will have more to say on this in the coming weeks and months.