DevOps/SecOps Tools for Multi-cloud Application Service Automation
Speed, agility, responsiveness, and quality of service are critical goals for enterprise networks. In pursuit of these objectives, DevOps, the set of software development and IT operations practices designed to shorten the life cycle of systems development with continuous delivery and high software quality, has become the “go-to” strategy for many organizations. Along with DevOps goes SecOps, which has IT security and operations teams collaborating to monitor and assess corporate asset risks. But how successful DevOps and SecOps are in practice depends on the tools you choose and how you deploy them. This is where network automation takes enterprise networking in hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments to the next level.
Automate Multi-cloud Application Delivery Using HashiCorp Terraform & Consul
This webinar session demonstrates application network automation using A10 Thunder® ADC’s integration with DevOps tools, featuring integration with HashiCorp Consul & Terraform and support for Oracle Cloud for smart hybrid/multi-cloud deployment.
The Network Operator’s Challenge
A network operator’s to-do list includes tasks such as allocating resources for new services, network device and security policy configuration, service pool creation and management, traffic management, service monitoring, and service capacity planning. In a multi-cloud environment, many of these tasks are incredibly time-consuming due to the complexity of cloud services and the volume of data involved. For example, deploying and configuring application delivery controllers across multiple clouds quickly becomes a challenge if everything must be done in many manual steps. To become efficient in both executing a given task as well as juggling multiple tasks, it’s vital to reduce human effort, exclude human error, and respond quickly. However, the network automation tools developed for non-cloud environments just aren’t up to the task.
Managing the Multi-Cloud World
While network operator tasks in traditional in-house environments were once a significant overhead, the advent of multi-cloud architectures has exponentially increased the workload and has created completely new deployment and management tasks that require in-depth network visibility. As a result, new automation tools have appeared that specifically address hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
A10’s DevOps Tools Integrations
Recognizing the need for effective DevOps tools for hybrid cloud and multi-cloud deployments, A10 Networks has developed solutions that tightly integrate its application and security products with world-class hybrid cloud and multi-cloud management tools.
HashiCorp Consul
HashiCorp Consul is an open-source system for automating network configurations, discovering services, creating and managing service meshes, and monitoring service health. A10’s integration with HashiCorp Consul provides automated Thunder® Application Delivery Controller (ADC) configuration and control based on service discovery.
HashiCorp Terraform
HashiCorp Terraform is an open-source multi-cloud management tool that delivers “infrastructure as code.” Based on a consistent cloud-independent command line interface for network automation workflow, HashiCorp Terraform allows enterprises to manage hundreds of cloud services across multiple providers and create and manage reproducible infrastructure. Through A10’s integration with HashiCorp Terraform, network operators can manage the lifecycle and operations of the A10 Thunder ADC and Thunder Convergent Firewall (CFW), including provisioning, configuring, and updating A10 products in any form factor or on any underlying cloud infrastructure.
Oracle Cloud
A10’s integration with Oracle Cloud includes Cloud-init support, a method for cross-platform cloud instance initialization, with a high-performance and high-availability Thunder ADC deployment.
How A10 Can Help
A10 Networks’ Thunder ADC for multi-cloud environments is a full proxy Layer 4 through Layer 7 server load balancer and global server load balancer with 100 percent API coverage that comes in multiple physical and virtual form factors. For network operators, Thunder ADC and Thunder CFW integrations with leading multi-cloud DevOps tools for application service network automation deliver flexible, cost effective, and sophisticated infrastructure management for even the most complex Polynimbus configurations.