Cumulus Networks

Last updated
Cumulus Networks
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Networking software, Cloud Networking
FoundedJanuary 2010;14 years ago (2010-01)
FoundersJR Rivers
Nolan Leake
Headquarters
Mountain View, California
,
US
Key people
Josh Leslie (CEO)
ProductsOperating System for Switches
Parent Nvidia
Website cumulusnetworks.com

Cumulus Networks was a computer software company headquartered in Mountain View, California, US. The company designed and sold a Linux operating system for industry standard network switches, along with management software, for large datacenter, cloud computing, and enterprise environments.

Contents

In May 2020, American semiconductor manufacturer Nvidia announced it was acquiring Cumulus. [1] Post acquisition the company was absorbed into Nvidia's networking business unit, along with Mellanox. Nvidia still offers Cumulus Linux.

Background

Cumulus Networks was founded by JR Rivers and Nolan Leake in 2010. The company raised a first round of seed funding in 2012. [2] Cumulus Networks emerged publicly in June 2013 [3] after previously operating in stealth mode. [4] [5] [6] The company is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Peter Wagner and 4 of the 5 original VMware founders.[ citation needed ]

In 2014 Dell began offering the option of the Cumulus Linux network OS on Dell's switches. [7]

In 2015, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) began offering the option of Cumulus Linux on HPE's switches. [8]

In 2016, Mellanox began offering Cumulus Linux on their Spectrum switches. [9]

In 2018, Lenovo began offering Cumulus Linux on their ThinkSystem Rackswitch line of switches. [10]

On June 20, 2019, the company announced the departure of co-founder JR Rivers, who had been the original CEO and, since March 2016, the CTO. [11] According to the company's website, neither Rivers nor Leake remain on the Board of Directors.

In January 2020, Hewlett Packard announced a partnership with Cumulus to include Cumulus' Linux NetQ software on HPE's network storage products. [12]

In May 2020, Nvidia Corporation announced plans to acquire Cumulus Networks for an undisclosed amount. [1]

Products

Cumulus Linux

Cumulus Linux was their open Linux based networking operating system for bare metal switches. It's been based on the Debian Linux distribution. [13]

In a 2017 Gartner report Cumulus Networks was highlighted as a pioneer of open source networking for developing an open source networking operating system in a market where hardware vendors usually delivered proprietary operating systems pre-installed. According to Gartner, Cumulus Networks had worked around the lack of vendor support for open source networking by deploying bare metal switches with the Cumulus Linux operating system in large corporate networks. 32 percent of the Fortune 50 companies used the Cumulus Linux operating system in their data centers in 2017. [14]

NetQ

NetQ is network state validation software, used during regular operations and for post-mortem diagnostic analysis. [15]

Host Pack

Host Pack includes software that brings the host to the network through NetQ and FRRouting. Host Pack improves network visibility through NetQ’s end-to-end fabric validation, and helps network connectivity through FRRouting’s open source routing protocol. It enables the host to be part of the layer 3 network, while supporting layer 2 overlay networks.[ citation needed ]

Open source projects

Open Network Install Environment (ONIE)

In 2012 Cumulus initiated the open network install environment (ONIE) project. The Open Compute Project turned ONIE into an initiative to define an open source install environment for bare metal network switches. A network switch with a ONIE install environment gives data centers the choice of network operating system, disaggregating the networking hardware from the operating system. The Cumulus Linux operating system can be installed on all ONIE compliant switches.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

A network operating system (NOS) is a specialized operating system for a network device such as a router, switch or firewall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">InfiniBand</span> Network standard

InfiniBand (IB) is a computer networking communications standard used in high-performance computing that features very high throughput and very low latency. It is used for data interconnect both among and within computers. InfiniBand is also used as either a direct or switched interconnect between servers and storage systems, as well as an interconnect between storage systems. It is designed to be scalable and uses a switched fabric network topology. Between 2014 and June 2016, it was the most commonly used interconnect in the TOP500 list of supercomputers.

Cray Inc., a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics. Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed in the TOP500, which ranks the most powerful supercomputers in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juniper Networks</span> American multinational technology company

Juniper Networks, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company develops and markets networking products, including routers, switches, network management software, network security products, and software-defined networking technology.

World Wide Technology, Inc. (WWT) is a privately-held technology services provider based in St. Louis, Missouri. The company has an annual revenue of $17.0 billion and employs over 9,000 people. WWT works in the areas of cloud computing, computer security, data centers, data analytics and artificial intelligence, computer networks, application software development, cell phone carrier networking, and consulting services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VMware ESXi</span> Enterprise-class, type-1 hypervisor for deploying and serving virtual computers

VMware ESXi is an enterprise-class, type-1 hypervisor developed by VMware, a subsidiary of Broadcom, for deploying and serving virtual computers. As a type-1 hypervisor, ESXi is not a software application that is installed on an operating system (OS); instead, it includes and integrates vital OS components, such as a kernel.

HPE Service Activator is a service provisioning and activation software platform from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Once installed and integrated with a Customer Service Provider's (CSP) environment, HPESA automates the processes inherent in the creation and activation of new telecommunications services. It is not specific to any network or service type and can apply across fixed, mobile, or internet environments. HPESA software is activation-centric, but engages the entire fulfillment stack as defined by the TeleManagement Forum's Business Process Framework (eTOM) framework, including order management, resource inventory and service activation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HPE BladeSystem</span> Line of blade server machines by Hewlett Packard Enterprise

BladeSystem is a line of blade server machines from Hewlett Packard Enterprise that was introduced in June 2006.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Networking is the Networking Products division of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. HPE Networking and its predecessor entities have developed and sold networking products since 1979. Currently, it offers networking and switching products for small and medium sized businesses through its wholly owned subsidiary Aruba Networks. Prior to 2015, the entity within HP which offered networking products was called HP Networking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open Compute Project</span> Organization that shares designs of data center products

The Open Compute Project (OCP) is an organization that shares designs of data center products and best practices among companies, including Arm, Meta, IBM, Wiwynn, Intel, Nokia, Google, Microsoft, Seagate Technology, Dell, Rackspace, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NVIDIA, Cisco, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Lenovo and Alibaba Group.

6WIND is a virtual networking software company delivering disaggregated and cloud-native solutions to CSPs and enterprises globally. The company is privately held and headquartered in the West Paris area, in Montigny-le-Bretonneux. 6WIND has a global presence with offices in the US and APAC. The company provides virtualized networking software which is deployed in bare-metal or in virtual machines on COTS servers in public & private clouds. Their solutions are disaggregated and containerized based on the cloud-native architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mellanox Technologies</span> Israeli-American multinational supplier of computer networking products

Mellanox Technologies Ltd. was an Israeli-American multinational supplier of computer networking products based on InfiniBand and Ethernet technology. Mellanox offered adapters, switches, software, cables and silicon for markets including high-performance computing, data centers, cloud computing, computer data storage and financial services.

The Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) is an open source software project managed by the Linux Foundation. It provides a set of data plane libraries and network interface controller polling-mode drivers for offloading TCP packet processing from the operating system kernel to processes running in user space. This offloading achieves higher computing efficiency and higher packet throughput than is possible using the interrupt-driven processing provided in the kernel.

DNOS or Dell Networking Operating System is a network operating system running on switches from Dell Networking. It is derived from either the PowerConnect OS or Force10 OS/FTOS and will be made available for the 10G and faster Dell Networking S-series switches, the Z-series 40G core switches and DNOS6 is available for the N-series switches.

The Machine is the name of an experimental computer made by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. It was created as part of a research project to develop a new type of computer architecture for servers. The design focused on a “memory centric computing” architecture, where NVRAM replaced traditional DRAM and disks in the memory hierarchy. The NVRAM was byte addressable and could be accessed from any CPU via a photonic interconnect. The aim of the project was to build and evaluate this new design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hewlett Packard Enterprise</span> American information technology company

The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) is an American multinational information technology company based in Spring, Texas.

The Open Network Install Environment is an open-source "install environment", that acts as an enhanced boot loader utilizing facilities in a Linux/BusyBox environment. This small Linux operating system allows end-users and channel partners to install a network operating system as part of data center provisioning, similar to the way servers are provisioned with an operating system of choice.

Datera was a global enterprise software company headquartered in Santa Clara, California that developed an enterprise software-defined storage platform. Datera was acquired by VMware in April 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 "Nvidia acquires Cumulus Networks". Techcrunch. 2020-05-04. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  2. ↑ Stacey Higginbotham (March 5, 2012). "The lowdown on stealth startup Cumulus Networks". GigaOM.
  3. ↑ Deborah Gage (June 19, 2013). "Bringing Linux to Networking, Cumulus Publicly Emerges". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original (blog) on June 29, 2013.
  4. ↑ Paul Venezia (June 19, 2013). "Cumulus Networks unveils 'Cisco killer'". Infoworld. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  5. ↑ Greg Ferro (June 19, 2013). "Cumulus Networks Casts a Shadow On Cisco Strategy". Archived from the original on June 27, 2013. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
  6. ↑ Jack Clark (June 20, 2013). "Cumulus sighting means storm coming for Cisco". The Register. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  7. ↑ "Dell Teams With Cumulus Networks To Sell Bare-Metal Switches". Archived from the original on 2015-04-18. Retrieved 2015-04-18.
  8. ↑ "HP latest to unbundle switch hardware, software". Network World. 2015-02-19. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  9. ↑ "Mellanox Lets Cumulus Linux Ride its Ethernet Switches". SDxCentral. 2016-03-07. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
  10. ↑ "Lenovo Partners With Cumulus on Open Networking". eWeek. 2018-12-11. Retrieved 2018-12-12.
  11. ↑ "Co-Founder and CTO JR Rivers Leaves Cumulus Networks". Sdx Central. 20 June 2019.
  12. ↑ "Cumulus Networks and Hewlett Packard team up to offer open networking storage for data centers". Tech Republic. 2020-01-07. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  13. ↑ "SDN in action: Hands-on with Cumulus Linux". Infoworld. 2014-11-19. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  14. ↑ Michał Choraś; Ryszard S. Choraś, eds. (2018). Image Processing and Communications Challenges 10: 10th International Conference, IP&C'2018 Bydgoszcz, Poland, November 2018, Proceedings. Springer. p. 151. ISBN   9783030036584.
  15. ↑ "Cumulus launches NetQ to monitor networks built on its SDN software". SearchSDN. Retrieved 2018-07-11.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.