Cisco proposes network-as-a-service

Cisco Systems, one of the world's largest technology companies, signalled it has more than a passing interest in cloud infrastructure by submitting a design for OpenStack: Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), notes Cnet.

Cisco's proposal is not the first for NaaS, but it signifies an important acceptance not just of a change to the way that customers consume compute and networking but a shift in how big companies will make OpenStack both the literal and metaphorical Apache Web server for cloud services.

The networking component of both public and private clouds has been woefully underserved, the report says, either because big networking vendors see it as a risk or because the pace and mores of open source development don't fit with their own development models.

According to Web Host Industry Review, some of the features include compute for interconnecting two VM instances to different virtual networks, network services insertion and request “adaptive” network resources.

OpenStack: NaaS will provide network resources required to interconnect OpenStack zones and network resources required to support new services like virtual private cloud.

According to Cisco, there are still several open questions to discuss, but the in future, this network-as-a-service could be expanded to support SLA, Network level QoS and other network-based auditing or monitoring services.

This is beyond allowing services like interconnecting two VM instances or providing resources required to interconnect OpenStack “Zones” or geographically dispersed computer or storage resources, says Seeking Alpha.