Cumulus Networks today at VMworld® announced hardware Layer 2 gateway services on networking gear running Cumulus Linux™, extending virtual networks to physical workloads. In conjunction with this announcement, Cumulus announced integration with VMware NSX™, the platform for network virtualization. Companies deploying industry standard network hardware leveraging Cumulus Linux can now connect scalable, multi-tenant virtual networks to physical workloads such as high performance application databases, legacy systems, storage, and appliances at wire-rate. The combined Cumulus Linux and VMware NSX solution empowers service providers and enterprises to rapidly provision physical and virtual networks and onboard new applications within minutes, significantly decreasing time and maintenance demands on IT.
By integrating gateway services with existing network virtualization solutions, Cumulus Linux enables simplified network orchestration, building on Cumulus Networks’ ability to provide low cost, easy to manage datacenter solutions. It offers simplified operations of large-scale multi-tenant networks with one single point of management – VMware NSX – for virtual and physical ports.
Cumulus Linux enables high capacity IP fabrics on industry-standard networking hardware. VMware NSX network virtualization will decouple logical networks from the underlying physical infrastructure. Together, these solutions can offer significant savings in both OPEX and CAPEX.
“With VMware NSX™ integration, we are helping to drive the networking industry forward with flexible, affordable solutions that adapt to our customer needs,” said JR Rivers, co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Networks. “Building on the incredible response we’ve had with Cumulus Linux, we are excited to bring this latest iteration to our customers and provide them with even faster, simpler, and more cost effective networking.”
Cumulus Linux’s Layer 2 gateway services offer wire-rate performance, leveraging the latest Broadcom Trident 2 chipset with hardware VXLAN support. Wire-rate gateway services, combined with Cumulus Networks’ high capacity IP fabric, enable a faster underlay network for network virtualization.
Cumulus Networks emerged from stealth in June to unveil Cumulus Linux, the first true, full-featured Linux operating system for datacenter networking.
Single Solution, Multiple Benefits
With integrated wire-rate gateway services, Cumulus Linux running on networking gear doesn’t just become the ideal solution for the network virtualization underlay physical network infrastructure, it also future proofs the customer’s environments.
Customers will also find additional benefits from physical network infrastructure running Cumulus Linux like:
- Faster – high capacity IP fabric, Rapid onboarding of new applications, physical and virtual networks
- Easier – Simplified orchestration, automation and monitoring
- More affordable – Lower OPEX through common Linux-based toolsets for compute and network infrastructure, lower CAPEX through hardware resource decoupling
“As businesses look for IT solutions that keep pace with their transition to private and hybrid cloud, Cumulus Linux supports the new operating model for the software-defined data center,” said Hatem Naguib, vice president of networking and security, VMware. “Deploying VMware NSX™ with networking hardware powered by Cumulus Linux gives customers greater flexibility and choice in underlying infrastructure, improves business agility and will enable a seamless and unified view across the virtual and physical environments.”
Pricing and Availability
Hardware Layer 2 gateway services are built into the standard Cumulus Linux distribution and will be available to customers later this year. Customers with current subscriptions are entitled to download this upgrade for free and benefit from this added functionality.