IBM is developing a SaaS package to help enterprises securely network heterogenous environments, including edge, on-prem and multicloud resources.
The IBM Hybrid Cloud Mesh is a SaaS service that implements a virtualized Layer 3-7 environment to rapidly enable secure connectivity between users, applications, and data distributed across multiple locations and environments, according to Andrew Coward, general manager of IBM’s software defined networking group.
In a nutshell, Hybrid Cloud Mesh deploys gateways within the clouds – including on-premises, AWS or other providers’ clouds, and transit points, if needed – to support the infrastructure, and then it builds a secure Layer 3-7 mesh overlay to deliver applications, Coward said. At the application level, the exposure to developers occurs at Layer 7, and the networking teams see Layer 3 and 4 activities, Coward said.
“Managing how applications behave across a vast virtualized infrastructure is what we’ve challenged ourselves to go after, and we really wanted to make it a simple, kind of drag-and-drop experience for how businesses connect applications together. So that’s the primary goal,” Coward said.
When the service is available later this year, IBM Hybrid Cloud Mesh will also employ the DNS traffic-steering capabilities IBM gained when it acquired NS1 earlier this year. The NS1 technology will help the service to find and set up the best connection between clouds and end users and deliver applications that are optimized for performance, cost and availability, Coward said.
NS1 brings some important capabilities to IBM’s networking plans, including its global network
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