Increased Automation and SMART Capabilities with SmartFabric Director 2.0

As modern, open and software-driven networks change how cloud providers and enterprises approach the data center, the need to simplify management and increase efficiency across virtual and physical network environments has never been greater.

Dell EMC SmartFabric Director, the industry’s only fabric management platform co-engineered by VMware and Dell Technologies, enables smarter fabrics and end-to-end management by connecting the physical world with the virtual world via an intent-based provisioning model.

With SmartFabric Director 2.0, we take that vision further with the addition of capabilities that bridge the gap between the hardware-defined physical network and the software-defined virtual network in three key areas:

Simplicity: Reduce the steps to deploy a fabric while providing a single point for fabric lifecycle management.

Openness: Support for open standards to maximize flexibility, interoperability and technology investment.

Consistency: Apply a consistent policy and automation framework across physical and virtual environments to reduce complexity while increasing efficiency.

Now, with the introduction of SmartFabric Director 2.0, you have even more capabilities designed to make centralizing management across virtual and physical network infrastructures simpler, more efficient and scalable than ever.

Multiple Overlay Support with BGP EVPN

SmartFabric Director 2.0 introduces BGP EVPN to VXLAN routing and interoperability between multiple vendors’ systems. By decoupling the underlay network (physical topology) from the overlay network (virtual topology), this new capability gives you Layer 2/Layer 3 connectivity between endpoints and across data centers while maintaining a consistent underlay architecture.

Increased Flexibility with Support for Bare Metal Workloads

SmartFabric Director 2.0 adds support for bare metal workloads to enable a combination of virtualized and non-virtualized workloads. Some workloads such as Database Servers are sometimes not virtualized for increased performance and Smart Fabric Director now enables these workloads to interconnect with virtualized infrastructure.

Leverages Latest VMware Releases

SmartFabric Director 2.0 takes advantage of the latest VMware releases, including vSphere 7.0 and NSX-T 3.0. Integration with VMware vSphere enables auto learning of virtual networks and fabric provisioning, including auto-detection of ESXi hosts and LAGs. NSX-T integration auto-provisions the fabric/underlay correctly for the NSX-T overlay and provides support for transport VLAN and Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) consistency checks.

Increased Scalability

SmartFabric Director 2.0 doubles the number of switches from 32 to 64 for greater scalability and flexibility in data center environments.

New Automation Features and More

Improvements also include enhancements to the backup-restore UI and management features that create a more user-friendly experience. Of course, the new capabilities build upon the existing features, including streaming telemetry from fabric switches for real-time visibility into operational health status.

Explore SmartFabric Director 2.0 at VMworld Online On-Demand

See for yourself how SmartFabric Director 2.0 bridges the gap between the hardware-defined physical network and the software-defined virtual network.