For this type of cloud virtual routing, make sure your virtual router is compatible with the virtual network or SD-WAN technology you’re using. Public cloud providers are understandably unenthusiastic about your sending your techs to install routers in their data centers, but you may need a virtual router there if you want to use virtual networking and SD-WAN optimally. Virtual routers are also essential in many cloud applications. Using virtual routers means that if one fails because its server went down, another can be easily spun up to take its place. That may make sense in the data center, where there are already racks of servers installed. While many vendors offer this technology as appliances, most will also provide virtual routers for hosting on servers. All virtual-network technologies build an overlay network that has its own on- and off-ramp elements, which are really access routers. So what can you do with virtual router technology? The number one application, according to enterprises, is virtual networking, especially SD-WAN. Virtual networking, cloud applications, lower cost Commercial virtual-router software can be less expensive than a real router, but if you get the software from your router vendor to ease integration and pay for a server or white box for hosting, the cost savings may be less than you’d hoped for. While open-source router software is available, enterprises are often concerned abour support and integration costs. Then there’s the virtual router software itself. But for those kinds of application it’s probably smarter to think of a white-box solution the architecture and chip set combination will offer higher performance.

You can get specialized interface cards and special software drivers to improve performance, and you should expect to do that for any large-scale application of virtual routing. White boxes and virtual-router softwareĬommercial servers aren’t designed to be large-scale packet switches. Virtualizing routers doesn’t virtualize hosting costs. A virtual router in today’s network lexicon is a software instance of router functionality, generally designed to run on a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) server, so you have to pull those virtual routers out of the ether and host them.

Cloud hosted router