Happy Holidays from Cumulus Networks

2016 has been a big year for Cumulus Networks. We welcomed in a new CEO, helped our customers reduce TCO with a new perpetual pricing model, released NCLU, launched the industry’s first routing on the host solution, delivered the first multi-platform, multi-silicon 100G open networking solution, and we had a lot of fun hosting webinars, events and meetups — just to name a few.

To top off an already wonderful year, we were recently awarded one of the Glassdoor Best Places to Work for small and medium size businesses. We are both humbled and flattered to be awarded by our own employees, and we are dedicated to ensuring that Cumulus Networks stays a creative, innovative and fun place to work.

Just as importantly, we are dedicated to ensuring that our customers have the tools they need to build web-scale networks like the world’s largest data center operators. We believe in providing our customers the right technology, the right information and the right support to help them get there.

In 2017, we have a lot of exciting plans to enhance our customers’ web-scale experience. For starters, we’ll soon be launching EVPN for general availability. And we think Continue reading

Web-scale networking with Cumulus Linux — announcing 3.2

We are pleased to announce that Cumulus Linux 3.2 is now available for installation. The priority of this release was our operators: how can we make web-scale networking with Cumulus Linux easier, faster and more efficient for operators coming from all types of engineering backgrounds.

As more and more organizations are adopting a cloud environment for various uses, web-scale IT principles become an increasingly relevant tool for building efficient, automatable and scalable data centers. This release offers our customers a path to web-scale networking that is simple and user friendly.

Over the next several days, we’ll be posting several blog posts that go into detail about some of our 3.2 features. In the meantime, here is the overview.

Cumulus Linux 3.2 includes:

• NCLU: Network Command Line Utility (NCLU) provides users one central point where they can manually drive the system. This new feature both enables network engineers from all backgrounds and retains all the benefits of standardizing on Linux to achieve significant operational efficiency. Learn more about NCLU.
• PIM: Protocol-Independent Multicast enables efficient data distribution over Internet Protocol (IP). With the availability of PIM, you can now build networks utilizing web-scale networking ethos.
• System Snapshots Continue reading

Cumulus Networks customer highlight: Athena Health

Athena Health came to Cumulus Networks looking for a way to bring greater efficiency to their network at an affordable cost. After partnering with our services team, they realized that being a Cumulus Networks customer meant they were getting a lot more than reduced costs.

Athena Health provides a unique all-in-one solution that includes network-enabled electronic health record (EHR), practice management, care coordination, patient engagement, and population health services. Essentially, they help ensure that doctors can focus on their patients rather than administrative work.

If a doctor cannot access a patient’s information due to an issue with Athena’s network, the result could literally be fatal. In the past, the team had leaned on more-traditional technology and skillsets, but scalability was getting too costly. When Athena began exploring their options, they were looking to expand their data center in a cost-effective way. But once they found Cumulus Networks, they realized they didn’t have to sacrifice powerful technology for cost.

After speaking with Athena Health, we knew exactly how we could help. Our experienced services team worked directly with the engineers at Athena to provide hands-on, customized implementation advice in the form of Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) scripts which allow their data Continue reading

How much does web-scale networking cost?

Here at Cumulus Networks, we cannot help but tout our innovative technology, user-friendly features and seamless integrations. Can you blame us for being excited about what we do? But at the end of the day, we know that your business decisions come down to the bottom line. How much will web-scale networking cost my business? What’s the total cost of ownership?

Going web-scale with Cumulus Networks can save your business money on both the cost of Capex and Opex. We created this easy-to-use TCO calculator so you could see your potential cost based on your data center requirements.

Adjust your estimated cost by choosing your rack requirements with the slider

Our total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) calculator was designed using actual customer data. We found that our customers were saving substantially on things like:

• The cost of acquiring open switches and optics
• The ability to leverage existing talent and tools
• OS required for Layer 3 networking
• OS support and integration
• The cost of scalability

One of the biggest contributors to lowering costs with Cumulus Networks is that web-scale architecture with open networking offers choice and flexibility. You can use any brand of ONIE compatible switches and optics. In fact, Cumulus Linux Continue reading