Separating Administration from the Virtualization Fabric

The management functions that support the administration and security of the virtualization fabric are security-critical functions. These functions must be separated from the rest of the virtualization fabric, protected with strong security measures, and closely monitored.

VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure™ - Cloud Director™ Edition Reference Architecture includes a three-pod design that separates the functional blocks by using a management pod, edge pod, and resource pod. The initial deployment of a three-pod design consists of three vSphere clusters, with one cluster for each pod. Clusters can be scaled up by adding ESXi hosts, and pods can be scaled up by adding clusters.

The separation of management, edge, and resource functions in individually scalable pods lets you plan capacity by function. This strategy promotes operational flexibility and scalability while separating the management functions from the virtualization fabric.

The management pod hosts all the NFV management components. Its functions include resource orchestration, analytics, business continuity and disaster recovery, third-party management, and NFV operations.

For more information about separating administration from the virtualization fabric, see the Telco Cloud Reference Architecture Guide.