Big Switch Expands Cloud-First Strategy with AWS Public Cloud Monitoring

Big Monitoring Fabric Delivers Multi-VPC Visibility and Security for AWS Workloads


Santa Clara, Calif., Dec. 06, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Big Switch Networks, the Cloud-First Networking Company, today announced general availability of Big Monitoring Fabric (Big Mon) for AWS, a seamless deep packet monitoring solution that enables workload monitoring within customer specified Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs). All components of the solution are virtual, with elastic scale-out capability based on traffic volumes. 

“Big Mon for AWS enables organizations to easily monitor their AWS application traffic across multiple VPCs,” said Prashant Gandhi, Chief Product Officer, Big Switch Networks. “As enterprises expand their hybrid cloud footprint, they require public cloud applications to have the same level of visibility and security as on-prem applications while ensuring consistent policy and operational workflows. Big Mon for AWS provides an integrated, single-pane-of glass solution to easily achieve packet-and flow-level visibility of workloads in AWS.”

Today, organizations are challenged because public cloud providers do not offer sophisticated monitoring capabilities of VPC traffic for applications which reside in public clouds. Big Mon solves these monitoring challenges via a cloud-based solution in partnership with centrally located security analytic and monitoring tools. Powered by a centralized cloud controller, Big Mon brings a comprehensive packet-and flow-level visibility to the organization’s multi-VPC cloud workloads comparable to the visibility of on-premises deployments.

With the Big Mon solution, packets from multiple workloads across multiple VPCs are replicated and forwarded to the “monitoring VPC.” Big Mon’s elastic architecture scales out automatically as workloads and/or associated network traffic grows, for a continued visibility in an integrated, simplified manner.

Any AWS cloud-based monitoring or security tool can be connected to BMF for deeper security and application performance monitoring (APM). One example is Big Mon’s integration with Riverbed’s AppResponse Cloud. To obtain VPC application traffic, AppResponse Cloud works with SteelCentral agents and Big Mon as the Virtual Network Tap Aggregator. This joint solution provides real-time and historical network and application visibility in AWS public cloud.

Big Mon for AWS Capabilities

  • Centralized packet and flow-based monitoring of all VPCs of a user account
  • Visibility-related traffic is kept local for security purposes and cost savings
  • Monitoring and security tools are centralized and tagged within the dedicated VPC for ease of configuration
  • Role-based access control enables multiple teams to operate Big Mon 
  • Supports centralized AWS VPC tool farm to reduce monitoring cost
  • Integrated with Big Switch’s Multi-Cloud Director for centralized hybrid cloud management

Big Mon for AWS consists of the following components

  • Big Mon Controller: a cloud-based controller that enables AWS workload discovery, automatic monitoring of customer selected workloads, and centralized policy configuration, as well as support for customer-defined elastic scaling options for pervasive visibility in an intuitive and easy to use manner.
  • CloudLight AX: a lightweight software agent that installs automatically on AWS instances selected for monitoring. It mirrors the traffic from the workloads to send it to CloudLight VX for further processing.
  • CloudLight VX: a lightweight virtual switch software managed by the Big Mon Controller. It filters traffic received from one or more CloudLight AX agents, optionally applies packet-modification functions, and delivers the resulting traffic to the cloud-based centralized tool farm.

Supporting Material

Supporting Quotes
"As mainstream applications migrate to public cloud, the need for deep application visibility becomes very critical," said Nik Koutsoukos, VP, Product Marketing, Riverbed. "Riverbed and Big Switch are partnering to offer an application performance monitoring solution for AWS which enables VPC-level monitoring, thus enabling consistency with on-prem applications. The joint solution offers a unified and comprehensive approach for multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments."

About Big Switch Networks
Big Switch Networks is the Cloud-First Networking company, bringing public cloud-style networking and hybrid cloud consistency to organizations around the world. The company provides data center switching, monitoring, visibility and security solutions for on-premises enterprise cloud, public cloud and Multi-cloud environments that enable companies of all sizes to dramatically increase operational efficiency, increase business agility, and reduce networking costs. Big Switch was founded in 2010, with roots in the original Stanford research team that invented software-defined networking. Big Switch has strategic partnerships with Dell EMC, HPE and Edgecore, delivering innovative software on industry-standard open networking hardware. Since its founding the company has been an active member and contributor to multiple open source communities. Big Switch Networks is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, with a dedicated presence across more than 25 countries.The company is funded from leading venture capital firms, including: Dell Technologies Capital, Index Ventures, Intel Capital, Khosla Ventures, MSD Capital, Morgenthaler Ventures, Redpoint and Silverlake Waterman.

For additional information: visit us www.bigswitch.com, reach us info@bigswitch.com or follow us on Twitter @bigswitch, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Copyright 2018 Big Switch Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Big Switch Networks, the Big Switch logo, Big Cloud Fabric, Big Mon, Big Monitoring Fabric, BMF, BigSecure, Big Switch Labs, Big Tap, BSN, Switch Light, ONL Certified, and ONL Certified Gold, ONLX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Big Switch Networks, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks, service marks, registered marks or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners. Big Switch Networks assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracies in this document. Big Switch Networks reserves the right to change, modify, transfer or otherwise revise this publication without notice.

Media & Analyst contact: 
Kate Lehman
media@bigswitch.com