Building a Future-Proof Cloud Infrastructure: A Unified Architecture for Network, Security, and Storage Services

Chapter 1. Introduction to Distributed Platforms

In the last ten years, we have observed an increasingly rapid transition from monolithic servers to virtualization. Initially, this happened inside enterprise networks, creating the need for virtual networking, but it has quickly evolved into modern cloud architectures that add the dimension of multitenancy and, with multitenancy, increased demand for security. Each user requires network services, including firewalls, load balancers, virtual private networks (VPNs), microsegmentation, encryption, and storage, and needs to be protected from other users.

This trend is very evident in cloud providers, but even larger enterprises are structuring their networks as private clouds and need to secure ...