Big Switch Networks announced the release of Big Cloud Fabric 2.6 this morning, featuring network automation and visibility for VMware NSX and vSphere environments.

Big Cloud Fabric supports the VMware NSX-v network virtualization overlay, offering NSX virtual machine and host visibility within the Big Cloud Fabric controller, as well as analytics to enhance troubleshooting.

Version 2.6 also highlights advanced integration with vSphere server virtualization, bringing more bare-metal SDN advantages to virtual workloads in the data center. Integrating directly into vCenter, the Big Cloud Fabric controller automates network creation on the physical software-defined networking (SDN) fabric.

The software-defined data center has become a compelling use case for enterprise, because it offers automation and policy-based provisioning across servers, storage, and networking, says Gregg Holzrichter, Big Switch vice president and chief marketing officer.

Still, this vision has been slow to materialize. "With this release, what we are accelerating is the flexibility of networking silo in the data center," Holzrichter says. "You can spin up a VM from vCenter and provision storage, and automatically configure your network through one management approach. This is a strategic step forward to bringing agility to the networking silo in the data center."

Holzrichter says another advantage of Big Cloud Fabric 2.6 is that it's the only SDN underlay for VMware deployments. This allows customers to make the transition from hardware to software, and to do so at a lower cost.

For those wondering what today's announcement means for Big Switch's engagement with OpenStack, no need to worry. The move toward VMware is a market expansion, says Prashant Gandhi, vice president of product management at Big Switch.

"Our commitment to OpenStack continues, and we are supporting OpenStack Juno in 2.6," Gandhi says.

Big Switch announced Big Tap 4.5 last week, hinting that 5.0 is around the corner. Similarly, Big Cloud Fabric version 3.0 is imminent, slated for the second part of 2015.

Big Cloud Fabric 2.6 is available now, along with the support for vSphere integration, Fabric Analytics for vSphere, and NSX-v. It is licensed on a per-switch subscription basis.