Protecting the Administration Network

VMware provides two key interfaces that form a management plane to administer the virtualization fabric and VNFs: a VIM from VMware and VMware Telco Cloud Automation. Both use secure, encrypted channels to administer VMs, VNFs, and the ESXi hypervisor.

Telco Cloud Automation connects to the VIM over a secure channel so that you can manage the telco virtualization fabric and its network functions from a single location. Telco Cloud Automation and the VIM control access with authentication and multitenant role-based access control. The VIM securely integrates with vSphere, NSX, and vSAN to establish a single management plane for the virtualization fabric.

In addition to the virtualization layer, protecting the administration network require appropriate hardware with sufficient physical ports to separate the administration network traffic from other network traffic and to segment traffic by sensitivity levels at the physical layer.