NetQ is now a 2018 “New Product” Award Winner!

Cumulus NetQ is on FIRE!!

Just one year ago, Cumulus launched a new product that fundamentally changes the way organizations validate and troubleshoot not just their network, but the entire Linux ecosystem as a whole. The product was named NetQ (think Network Query). It provides deep insight on the connectivity of all network devices either now or in the past — including all switches, Linux hosts, inside Linux hosts (Containers, direct interaction with container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, VMs, Openstack environment) and any other devices running a Linux-based operating system connected to the network. No more manual box-by-box troubleshooting, no more wondering what happened last night, no more pulling cables to find where the issue was stemming from, no more finger pointing, no more human-led misconfigurations and no more frustration of not having sight past the edge of the network.

Instead, Cumulus NetQ, the agent-based technology that runs on anything Linux, changes all that. NetQ brings the efficiencies of web-scale to network operations with an algorithmic, preventive, centralized telemetry system built for the modern automated cloud network. NetQ aggregates and maintains data from across all Linux nodes in the data center in a time-series database, making the fabric-wide events, Continue reading

Vodafone begins its trek with Voyager

“To boldly go where no one has gone before!”

Those words still echo in my mind as I remember watching the old Star Trek shows from yesteryear. It rings of adventure, of exploration, and of never settling for the known state of things.

It is these words that come to mind when I think of the new Voyager technology that is coming to market, which is designed to go boldly where no other technology in the Packet and Optical world has gone before. Voyager is the industry’s first combined routing, switching and optical platform all combined in a 1 RU footprint. The unique combo sets out to unifying both IP and optical to massively reduce complexity and costs. It will boldly transform the data center interconnect of today.

But it’s also the first open offering in the optical space. Cumulus is bringing its networking with S.O.U.L. (Simple. Open. Untethered. Linux) moxie and applying it to the transport and data center interconnect markets. This disaggregated solution dramatically reduces the cost of the current proprietary stack. It’s a solution with multiple players…

• Facebook – Donated the design to TIP
• Cumulus – The open network operating system (NOS)
• Celestica Continue reading

Announcing Cumulus Linux 3.6 and…early access to Voyager!

The reign of proprietary networking in optical and data center interconnect falls

In furthering our mission to bring S.O.U.L. to networking through Simple, Open, Untethered, Linux-based networking solutions, and just on the heels of our Cumulus NetQ 1.3 announcement around simplifying container networking and operations, today we continue the mission to advance web-scale networking in the digital age with our release of Cumulus Linux 3.6. Our focus has been to help organizations move towards a modern world of simplification, flexibility and scale — where complex applications reside on standardized infrastructure that is automated, repeatable and scalable. We see a world of agility built upon cloud principles; of converged administrative teams where sysadmins can manage the network and network admins can manage systems.

What’s new in Cumulus Linux 3.6

In this release of Cumulus Linux 3.6, we are not only driving network efficiency and simplicity, but also expanding our solution set to include data center interconnect (DCI) use cases. Additionally, to help organizations adopt these web-scale principles in networking, we are enhancing our portfolio by adding popular networking capabilities to the open Linux platform. These include:

Voyager code is available for early access

From Continue reading

Here’s how NetQ injects S.O.U.L into your network

Our passion at Cumulus is all around networking with S.O.U.L. Simple. Open. Untethered. Linux. These tenants come together to help organizations build a web-scale, modern, automated network that is necessary for the digital age. So it’s no surprise that Cumulus NetQ and networking with S.O.U.L go hand-in-hand. Let’s take a closer look at how Cumulus NetQ builds on these tenants of S.O.U.L.

Simple

NetQ is all about simplifying network operations. The deep visibility achieved through Cumulus NetQ is extremely powerful from a network validation, management and troubleshooting standpoint.

• Simplifying rollout validation: Cumulus NetQ helps reassure networking teams that what they are rolling into production will actually work. Its validation system lets users check their configuration during production rollout. And with NetQ’s powerful tracing capability, you can validate that you have the true end-to-end connectivity you expected. Tracing saves a huge amount of time as you work to ensure that the path of the packet is working as expected. Without Tracing, you have to go box-by-box and validate all the way up and down the stack. Instead, with NetQ, you can see the pathways the packets flow. This network validation works down Continue reading

Announcing Cumulus NetQ 1.3 — now with Kubernetes!

Today, we are thrilled to announce the availability of Cumulus NetQ 1.3. With this release, Cumulus extends its leadership in container networking insight by integrating NetQ with Kubernetes, along with our previously supported integration with Docker Swarm.

This announcement aligns perfectly with Cumulus’ mission of driving web-scale networks for the digital age with automation and agility by implementing networking with S.O.U.L. Simple. Open. Untethered. Linux. NetQ is woven deep into that S.O.U.L. strategy, which we’ll get to later in a separate blog post. For now, there is a lot to dig into here with this Kubernetes integration with NetQ, so let’s begin.

The growth & challenges with containers

Container technology is all the rage in the CD/DevOps world. Nearly 70% of the companies queried in a Portworx 2017 container adoption survey invested financially in containers at some level in 2017, leaping from 52% in 2016. 451 Research predicts containers will grow to become a $2.7BN market by 2020. That’s 3.5 times greater than the $762 million container market in 2016, with a CAGR of 40%.

The popularity of these Linux-based containers stems from their ability to dramatically improve flexibility when running Continue reading

Rock your network with S.O.U.L — the Cumulus Networks difference

Since our inception, Cumulus Networks has strived to propel the industry forward with innovative products, unmatched service and a transformative worldview. As the company has grown and as our products have been optimized, we feel we’re at a place that is truly exciting, both for us and for our customers. So today, you may ask, how does Cumulus Networks now fit in to the industry environment, needs and zeitgeist as the innovators of open networking? I’m happy you asked. Let’s start from the beginning.

Restrictive networking is holding back digital transformation

CIO Magazine recently predicted that by 2020 there will be 4.1 billion internet users with 26.3 billion networked devices. This will cause data center traffic to jump 330%! Every industry is feeling the pressure to deliver innovative digital experiences to these network hungry consumers. This digital disruption is real — where speed, quality and agility mean everything to businesses. In fact, 40% of CEOs rank digital transformation as their top imperative, according to a recent Economist Intelligence Unit survey.

This means the vitality of the network is of the utmost importance to support the applications that we haven’t even dreamed of yet. Without a fast, agile Continue reading

How EVPN saved SDN from the brink of death

In 2010 and 2011, Software Defined Networking (SDN) was the hot new way of looking at architecture, and everyone had high hopes that it would reduce the stress of highly manual and complex operations. That was then, but now we’re in 2018 and it appears that SDN hasn’t quite fulfilled what it advertised, as many networks remain expensive, complex and proprietary. Some may claim that SDN is dead, but perhaps that’s not the case; maybe SDN has changed from its previous understanding and taken on a new definition. With solutions like EVPN and freedom from proprietary controllers bringing it back to life, SDN has risen like a phoenix from the ashes to finish the mission it started. How did we get here and what’s changed? You can check out our white paper for a more in-depth, technical look at SDN’s journey, or you can keep reading here for a CliffsNotes version of the information.

A link to the past: what SDN promised us

SDN promised to enable the network to behave like the server world, where resources could be virtualized and new environments could be deployed or decommissioned almost instantaneously. SDN sought to break-up the vertical stack by moving the Continue reading

Gartner’s open model: How does Cumulus stack up?

As we’ve discussed in a previous blog post, it can be difficult to determine whether or not a vendor is truly as open as they claim to be. Sure, your network provider says they support open solutions, but the reality is they take advantage of open networking’s flexible definition to market not-so-flexible networks. How can you be certain that you’re investing in the open network your data center deserves?

Never fear, Gartner is here! Their report on gauging vendors’ openness provides you with five easy questions to help you take a machete to the forest of false advertisement. So, how does Cumulus Networks stack up to these requirements, and how have we maintained our dedication to open networking? Let’s take a look at Gartner’s criteria — we think you’ll find that this open model fits Cumulus like a glove.

1) How simple is the solution?

We’ve broken down the qualifications for a simple solution into three parts. First of all, managing your network should be easy from the moment it comes online. Cumulus Linux is an operating system that ensures a simple start. A few features that guarantee a confusion-free beginning include:

• Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) – ZTP enables network Continue reading

Open networking drives forward with Cumulus Linux 3.5

‘Tis the season for spreading holiday cheer! As mentioned a few weeks ago, we at Cumulus feel so thankful for all the great success in 2017. Our focus and stated goal has been to disrupt and transform the future of networking. We are pioneering a new generation of hyper-scale, automated and open networks designed to drive network agility in an era of digital transformation.

As 2017 comes to a close, we know many of you are excited to celebrate the holidays. We’d like to give you even more to cheer for this season by announcing a few exciting enhancements to Cumulus Linux with our 3.5 release — all designed to help you create an agile, open network that gives you the web-scale benefits of automation, interoperability, cost savings and choice.

In our new release of Cumulus Linux 3.5, we bring you the following open networking benefits:

The industry’s most comprehensive VXLAN routing suite

Most legacy vendors offer either asymmetric routing or symmetric routing. For comparison, Cisco and Arista implement their VXLAN routing solution using symmetric mode. Juniper implements its VXLAN routing solution using asymmetric mode and some symmetric. With these different routing solutions, these vendor switches can’t operate Continue reading