Advanced Networking Features

We’ve expanded networking capabilities in OpenMetal Central to give you more control over how your cloud and bare metal resources are connected. With this release, you can create private VLANs, manage IP address blocks, and connect multiple environments with greater flexibility—all from within OpenMetal Central.

What’s New?

Organization-Wide Network Management

• View and manage VLANs and IP address blocks across your entire organization.

VLAN Management

• Create and assign VLANs to existing cloud and bare metal resources.
• List and manage VLANs across all organization hardware.
• Connect bare metal and cloud instances privately over VLANs.

IP Address Management

• List and track all public and private IP address blocks in one place.
• Create private IP ranges for internal networking.
• Purchase public IP address blocks directly through OpenMetal Central.

New Capabilities

With these updates, you can accomplish a wide range of networking tasks more efficiently. Here are a few key use cases:

• Create a Private, Secure Cloud Network – Set up private VLANs to connect your cloud and bare metal resources while keeping traffic isolated from external networks.
• Seamlessly Expand Your Infrastructure – Purchase additional public IP addresses as needed and assign them dynamically to your environments.
• Improve Resource Segmentation – Use VLANs to segment your network by project, team, or workload, enhancing security and organization.
• Interconnect Multiple Clouds and Bare Metal Environments – Ensure seamless communication between private clouds and dedicated hardware through VLAN-based networking.
• Track and Manage Your Network Resources – Gain clear insights into IP address allocations and VLAN assignments, reducing misconfigurations and simplifying troubleshooting.
• Enhance Security and Compliance – Restrict access between networked resources by isolating workloads and enforcing controlled communication policies.

Improved Private Networking Between Environments

A major addition to our networking capabilities is the ability to link multiple clouds and bare metal environments privately. This enables:

• Creation of private VLAN-based networks, allowing multiple products to communicate securely and efficiently without exposure to external networks.
• Easy management of private IP blocks for dedicated internal networking, keeping your sensitive data securely isolated.
• Flexible setup of VLAN-based private networks connecting different resources, improving inter-project communication without external exposure.

VLAN-based Networking

• VLANs used in VM-based environments are private networks, not secondary provider networks. Once a VLAN is provisioned, it is assigned a unique tag.
• We enable projects to use newly created, unrouted VLANs as private networks, allowing direct communication between cloud and bare metal resources.
• Multiple cloud projects can share the same VLAN, enabling private connectivity across environments.
• If you need DHCP enabled on more than one project within a VLAN, please contact support to avoid potential conflicts.

Available Now!

These networking controls are currently available to all OpenMetal Central users. We invite your feedback as you begin integrating these tools into your network architecture.

If you have any questions about configuring VLANs, IP addresses, or private networking, reach out to our support team or visit our documentation:  Adding new IP Blocks to a Cloud’s External Provider Network & Creating a Private Network Between Multiple Clusters .

Coming Soon

This release is part of our ongoing effort to make customization easier for users with unique use cases or advanced requirements. Our next release will focus on accelerating the deployment of custom bare metal servers and providing even greater control over infrastructure. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.