Navigating the open network operating systems space

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Some of your favorites are back together on this episode of the Kernel of Truth podcast— specifically Roopa Prabhu, Brian O’Sullivan and Pete Lumbis. Things have changed a little around here since the last time the three of them were chatting together on the podcast but one thing hasn’t, how much they love to talk all things open networking. In this episode the group talks about how to navigate the open networking operating systems space. From figuring out how to choose an open network operating system, to understanding what works best for deployments, and even what resources and communities are out there for you to tap into. We have it all here for you to help you get started. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the episode and don’t forget to also check out the links below with resources referenced in the podcast.

Guest Bios

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa is a Linux Architect at NVIDIA, formally Cumulus Networks. She and her team work on all things kernel networking and Linux system infrastructure areas. Her primary Continue reading

The evolution of hardware telemetry and its software interfaces

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In this episode, Kernel of Truth host Roopa Prabhu is joined by Barak Gafni. The two of them chat about the evolution of hardware telemetry and its software interfaces as well as catch up some of the work on IOAM Barak’s been involved with. We hope you enjoy this episode and don’t forget to also check out the links below with resources referenced in the podcast.

Guest Bios

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa is a Linux Architect at NVIDIA, formally Cumulus Networks. She and her team work on all things kernel networking and Linux system infrastructure areas. Her primary focus areas in the Linux kernel are Linux bridge, Netlink, VxLAN, Lightweight tunnels. She is currently focused on building Linux kernel dataplane for E-VPN. She loves working with the Linux kernel networking and debian communities. Her past experience includes Linux clusters, ethernet drivers and Linux KVM virtualization platforms. She has a BS and MS in Computer Science. You can find her on Twitter at @__roopa.

Barak Gafni: Barak is a Staff Architect at NVIDIA, formally Mellanox Technologies, focusing on enabling Continue reading

Cumulus content roundup: June 2020

June seems like a lifetime ago but there was so much content we wanted to make sure was on your radar. We know you may be thinking but wait, didn’t something big happen to Cumulus Networks in June? You would be right! We’re excited to share that we are now officially NVIDIA®.  Along with the news, we kept very busy with fresh podcast episodes, informative blog posts and much more so take a minute to dive on in and catch up on it all here.

From Cumulus Networks, now NVIDIA

Cumulus Networks’ President and Chief Product Officer, Partho Mishra, on the NVIDIA-Cumulus acquisition.: Partho Mishra answers your questions regarding the strategic focus of the new networking business unit at NVIDIA & the future of open networking.

Open source — the great equalizer.: Technology is a great equalizer and the open source movement has played a huge role in making this true and accelerating the process.

Remote work makes network visibility more critical than ever: We’re living through a major shift in the way employees work, extending the boundaries of what was once a tightly controlled environment.

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 8: Cumulus Linux in action Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 8: Cumulus Linux in action at Cloudscale

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If you’ve listened to the podcast before you may have heard us reference our customers from time to time. In this episode we’re switching things up and instead of referencing a customer, you’re going to hear directly from one! Manuel Schweizer, CEO of Cloudscale, joins host Roopa Prabhu, Attilla de Groot and Mark Horsfield to chat about Cloudscale’s first hand experience with open networking and what they hope the near and distant future of open networking will look like.

Guest Bios

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa Prabhu is a Linux Architect at Cumulus Networks, now NVIDIA. At Cumulus she and her team work on all things kernel networking and Linux system infrastructure areas. Her primary focus areas in the Linux kernel are Linux bridge, Netlink, VxLAN, Lightweight tunnels. She is currently focused on building Linux kernel dataplane for E-VPN. She loves working with the Linux kernel networking and debian communities. Her past experience includes Linux clusters, ethernet drivers and Linux KVM virtualization platforms. She has a BS and MS in Computer Science. You can find her on Twitter at Continue reading

Open networking post Nvidia-Mellanox-Cumulus acquisition

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With the recent acquisition of Cumulus Networks by Nvidia, what does that mean for open networking? Kernel of Truth host Roopa Prabhu is joined by Partho Mishra and Amit Katz to discuss what does the acquisition mean for the future of accelerated data center and for open networking in the data center. This is a must listen episode!

Guest Bios

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa Prabhu is Chief Linux Architect at Cumulus Networks. At Cumulus she and her team work on all things kernel networking and Linux system infrastructure areas. Her primary focus areas in the Linux kernel are Linux bridge, Netlink, VxLAN, Lightweight tunnels. She is currently focused on building Linux kernel dataplane for E-VPN. She loves working at Cumulus and with the Linux kernel networking and debian communities. Her past experience includes Linux clusters, ethernet drivers and Linux KVM virtualization platforms. She has a BS and MS in Computer Science. You can find her on Twitter at @__roopa.

Amit Katz: Amit is Vice President Ethernet Switch at Mellanox, Nvidia Business Unit. Amit served as Senior Director of Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 6: Building modern campus networks

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In this episode we talk about trends, architectures and technologies for building modern Campus networks. Joining Kernel of Truth podcast hosts Brian O’Sullivan and Roopa Prabhu are two of our senior consultants, Eric Pulvino and David Marshall, who know what they’re talking about because they are in the field working with customers building these networks. They share their first hand knowledge here so be sure to take a listen!

Guest Bios

Brian O’Sullivan: Brian currently heads Product Management for Cumulus Linux. For 15 or so years he’s held software Product Management positions at Juniper Networks as well as other smaller companies. Once he saw the change that was happening in the networking space, he decided to join Cumulus Networks to be a part of the open networking innovation. When not working, Brian is a voracious reader and has held a variety of jobs, including bartending in three countries and working as an extra in a German soap opera. You can find him on Twitter at @bosullivan00.

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa Prabhu is Chief Linux Architect at Cumulus Networks. Continue reading

Cumulus content roundup: April 2020

April has come and gone but you know what hasn’t? New content and useful resources from us! If you missed out on it earlier, catch up with this month’s edition of the Cumulus Content Roundup. We’ve got all the details on recent announcements like our NetQ 3.0 product launch, new podcast episodes for you listen, and so much more.

From Cumulus Networks
Modernizing your network has never been easier with Cumulus NetQ Lifecycle Management: To help network operations, we’ve added new lifecycle management capabilities to Cumulus NetQ 3.0, offering a simple GUI-driven workflow for provisioning, operating, maintaining & retiring network switches running Cumulus Linux. Scott Ciccone explains more about the recent product release in his blog here.

Linux Network Observability: Building Blocks: As Linux reigns the “Open-Distributed-Virtualized-Software-Driven-Cloud-Era”— understanding what is available within Linux in terms of observability is essential to our jobs & careers. Linux expert Roopa Prabhu shares what you need to know in this blog.

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 5: Routing protocols in the datacenter fabric: Special guest Russ White joins the Kernel of Truth podcast to discuss what we should think about when it comes to routing protocols in the datcenter. What are Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 5: Routing protocols in the datacenter fabric

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Hosts Roopa Prabhu and Pete Lumbis are joined by a special guest to the podcast, Russ White! The group come together virtually to discuss what we should think about when it comes to routing protocols in the datcenter. What are the tradeoffs when using traditional protocols like OSPF or BGP? What about new protocols like RIFT or a hybrid approach with things like BGP-link state? Spoiler alert: it depends.

Guest Bios

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa Prabhu is Chief Linux Architect at Cumulus Networks. At Cumulus she and her team work on all things kernel networking and Linux system infrastructure areas. Her primary focus areas in the Linux kernel are Linux bridge, Netlink, VxLAN, Lightweight tunnels. She is currently focused on building Linux kernel dataplane for E-VPN. She loves working at Cumulus and with the Linux kernel networking and debian communities. Her past experience includes Linux clusters, ethernet drivers and Linux KVM virtualization platforms. She has a BS and MS in Computer Science. You can find her on Twitter at @__roopa.

Pete Lumbis: Pete, CCIE R&S #28677 and CCDE 2012::3, is Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 4: Production Ready Automation

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In this episode hosts Roopa Prabhu and Brian O’Sullivan chat with Justin Betz about production grade automation and CI/CD workflows for continuous maintenance and deployment of your “infrastructure as code.” They also discuss how like any other software code, code to manage and automate your infrastructure (IAC) has to be maintained, fixed, withstand hardware and software upgrades — so how do you do that? Finally, the group talks about Open Source production quality automation code. Enjoy!

Guest Bios

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa Prabhu is Chief Linux Architect at Cumulus Networks. At Cumulus she and her team work on all things kernel networking and Linux system infrastructure areas. Her primary focus areas in the Linux kernel are Linux bridge, Netlink, VxLAN, Lightweight tunnels. She is currently focused on building Linux kernel dataplane for E-VPN. She loves working at Cumulus and with the Linux kernel networking and debian communities. Her past experience includes Linux clusters, ethernet drivers and Linux KVM virtualization platforms. She has a BS and MS in Computer Science. You can find her on Twitter at @__roopa.

Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 3: Linux networking with eBPF

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This podcast is all about Linux and to talk about it, we have two of the top Linux kernel experts. Kernel of Truth host Roopa Prabhu is one and chats with our special guest David Ahern about eBPF. If you haven’t heard of eBPF, it’s the hottest Linux kernel technology bringing programmability and acceleration to many Linux subsystems. In this podcast we focus on eBPF’s impact on networking and the million possibilities it brings to the table.

Guest Bios

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa Prabhu is Chief Linux Architect at Cumulus Networks. At Cumulus she and her team work on all things kernel networking and Linux system infrastructure areas. Her primary focus areas in the Linux kernel are Linux bridge, Netlink, VxLAN, Lightweight tunnels. She is currently focused on building Linux kernel dataplane for E-VPN. She loves working at Cumulus and with the Linux kernel networking and debian communities. Her past experience includes Linux clusters, ethernet drivers and Linux KVM virtualization platforms. She has a BS and MS in Computer Science. You can find her on Twitter at @__roopa.

Continue reading

Cumulus content roundup: February 2020

Are you looking for a break from the general news? Our content round-ups are a great source for all the recent blogs (and more!) that we’ve shared. From podcasts, to product updates,  to industry thought leadership and even  customer examples of how they’re implementing open networking technology— we’ve got it all here for you.

Dive into the content below and update yourself on what’s been happening. It may just be that needed break from the rest of the news that you were looking for.

From Cumulus Networks:

VXLAN/EVPN vs VRF Lite: In this blog Rama Darbha, Senior Consulting Engineer at Cumulus Networks, talks through the difference between VXLAN with EVPN and VRFLite and offers up his conclusion as to which solution is better.

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 1: FRRouting update: Season three jumps right into the deep end of the pool with a discussion on FRRouting. Listen as hosts Brian O’Sullivan & Roopa Prabhu chat about what’s new with the FRR community with a new guest to the podcast, FRR expert Donald Sharp.

Topology matters: how port-per-workload management strategies no longer hold up: A new way of looking at switching—as a logical, rather Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 2: OCP Summit 2020

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Early March is a busy time here at Cumulus Networks and part of the reason is the Open Compute Project Summit. Kernel of Truth hosts Brian O’Sullivan and Roopa Prabhu are joined by Scott Emery, project lead at OCP. First thing the group covers— what is OCP? The conversation continues into what’s happening in the OCP community, what you can expect at the conference and more.

Guest Bios

Brian O’Sullivan: Brian currently heads Product Management for Cumulus Linux. For 15 or so years he’s held software Product Management positions at Juniper Networks as well as other smaller companies. Once he saw the change that was happening in the networking space, he decided to join Cumulus Networks to be a part of the open networking innovation. When not working, Brian is a voracious reader and has held a variety of jobs, including bartending in three countries and working as an extra in a German soap opera. You can find him on Twitter at @bosullivan00.

Roopa Prabhu: Roopa is Director of Engineering, Linux software at Cumulus Networks. At Cumulus Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 3 episode 1: FRRouting update

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Season three jumps right into the deep end of the networking pool with a discussion on FRRouting. Kernel of Truth hosts Brian O’Sullivan and Roopa Prabhu are joined by a new guest to the podcast, Donald Sharp. With FRR being the hottest Open Routing protocol stack today, the group talks about the recent updates and features that are happening at such a high velocity now. What does that mean for the community? Listen to find out. You can also find more about FRRouting at their website here and Twitter here.

Guest Bios

Brian O’Sullivan: Brian currently heads Product Management for Cumulus Linux. For 15 or so years he’s held software Product Management positions at Juniper Networks as well as other smaller companies. Once he saw the change that was happening in the networking space, he decided to join Cumulus Networks to be a part of the open networking innovation. When not working, Brian is a voracious reader and has held a variety of jobs, including bartending in three countries and working as an extra in a German Continue reading

Cumulus content roundup: January 2020

We understand the start of the new year can be pretty busy and you may have missed out on some of the great content we shared this month. You’re in luck though, we have the best of the best right here for you so you don’t have to a miss a thing.

January was full of partnership announcements, 2020 predictions, and a lot of great blogs that you can, figuratively speaking, sink you teeth into. Catch up below!

From Cumulus Networks:

It’s a fact: choosing your own hardware means lower TCO:Organizations have diverse needs, and these needs change with time. The ability to select the right hardware for the task can be a competitive advantage. Learn how choosing your own hardware means lower TCO in our blog here.

Kernel of Truth season 2 episode 15: 2019 retrospect and 2020 predictions: Hosts Brian O’Sullivan & Roopa Prabhu are joined by Kernel of Truth podcast guest pros Pete Lumbis and Rama Darbha. Listen to this jam-packed podcast to hear their 2019 retrospect & 2020 predictions. Buzzword teaser: Automation.

Cumulus Networks and Metsi Technologies partner to prepare customers for new wave of tech adoption: We’re excited to announce our partnership with Continue reading

Kernel of Truth: Season 3 Teaser

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In this episode, we tease what’s coming up for Kernel of Truth’s season 3. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast if you haven’t already so you’re notified when the first episode for season 3 is posted or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. For behind-the-scenes look of life at Cumulus Networks, follow us on Instagram too.

Kernel of Truth season 2 episode 15: 2019 retrospect and 2020 predictions

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In this episode, hosts Brian O’Sullivan and Roopa Prabhu are joined by Kernel of Truth podcast guest pros Pete Lumbis and Rama Darbha. The group looks back at 2019, discussing what they learned from the year and then move on to their 2020 predictions. Want a teaser? Automation was a hot topic in 2019 not just on our podcast but with our customers. It’s become less of a “nice to have” and more of a “need to have.” If you’re hungry for more 2019 retrospect and 2020 predictions, be sure to listen to this jam-packed podcast.

Guest Bios

Brian O’Sullivan: Brian currently heads Product Management for Cumulus Linux. For 15 or so years he’s held software Product Management positions at Juniper Networks as well as other smaller companies. Once he saw the change that was happening in the networking space, he decided to join Cumulus Networks to be a part of the open networking innovation. When not working, Brian is a voracious reader and has held a variety of jobs, including bartending in three countries and Continue reading

Cumulus content roundup: December 2019

We wrapped up December, and really 2019 with some pretty big news! Project DENT was officially announced and we’re excited for the possibilities will bring. Not sure what project DENT is? Luckily for you, we have all the coverage available for your reading pleasure in this month’s content roundup.

In addition to the DENT news, we also brought you another episode of our Kernel of Truth podcast and some great education blogs. Enjoy them all below!

From Cumulus Networks:

Announcing project DENT: We are now proud contributors to the DENT project! Premier members also include Amazon, Delta Electronics Inc, Marvell, Mellanox, and Wistron NeWeb (WNC). Launched by the Linux Foundation, DENT is networking software designed to simplify enterprise edge networking. Roopa Prabhu, our Chief Linux Architect, shares why the chance to enable networking hardware vendors to leverage the same benefits that all Linux hardware technologies do today has got us so excited to join the project.

Network inventory: what do you have, and should it be there?:How do you defend what you don’t know exists? Establishing & maintaining a network inventory is both a technological & a business process problem— we talk about how a modern Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 2 episode 14: Infrastructure as code in action

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In this episode we continue the conversation about “infrastructure as code.” Last time we chatted about it we talked to Nick Mitchell and Eric Pulvino, two of our consultants, and shared not only what it is but what the problems infrastructure as code is solving for and why you should care. In this latest episode we go a step further.​ Kernel of Truth hosts Brian O’Sullivan and Pete Lumbis are joined by​ Anton Karneliuk who talk more about what it is and also discuss how to evolve it, what the challenges are and Anton shares his real-life experiences implemented it at The Hut Group.

Guest Bios

Brian O’Sullivan: Brian currently heads Product Management for Cumulus Linux. For 15 or so years he’s held software Product Management positions at Juniper Networks as well as other smaller companies. Once he saw the change that was happening in the networking space, he decided to join Cumulus Networks to be a part of the open networking innovation. When not working, Brian is a voracious reader and has held a Continue reading

Cumulus content roundup: November 2019

There’s a lot to be thankful for this month- and not just for open networking in general. Why? Well we’ve officially headed into the holidays at full steam with the recent Cumulus Linux 4.0 announcement, Cumulus NetQ 2.4 and more!

Catch up on all the latest Cumulus news, releases, and what’s to come in November’s content roundup. If you’re feeling extra thankful, head over to our last #BeEPIC game of 2019 here and share why you’re thankful for open networking. If you do, you’ll be entered to win a LEGO set and Hall of Fame status.

From Cumulus Networks:

Cumulus Networks 4th-Generation open, modern networking for applications of the future: Learn how we’re enabling customers to meet modern network challenges with our 4th-Generation of open, modern software— designed to run and operate modern, data center and campus networks that are simple, open, agile, resilient and scalable.

Kernel of Truth season 2 episode 13: Open networking is not whitebox: In this episode host Brian O’Sullivan is joined by Roopa Prabhu and Pete Lumbis to discuss why open networking is not just whitebox, it’s so much more.

Prevent lateral compromise with microsegmentation: Good network design can minimize the damage incurred Continue reading

Kernel of Truth season 2 episode 13: Open networking is not whitebox

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Roopa Prabhu and Roopa’s hype man Pete Lumbis join Kernel of Truth host Brian O’Sullivan to discuss why open networking is not just whitebox, it’s so much more. Between the general advantages of this kind of architecture to the benefits of being backed by the Linux kernel and Linux community— open networking is a great option to have not just now but going forward. Learn how this open development community works together to the advantage of everyone, not just networking, and with companies of all sizes, including hyper-scale ones, improving things like the sanitation of code and so much more. As a special bonus you’ll also learn what to eat in the data center. Spoiler: the answer is nothing but Brian might have an opinion otherwise.

Guest Bios

Brian O’Sullivan: Brian currently heads Product Management for Cumulus Linux. For 15 or so years he’s held software Product Management positions at Juniper Networks as well as other smaller companies. Once he saw the change that was happening in the networking space, he decided to join Cumulus Networks to Continue reading