Cumulus Networks, the leading provider bringing web-scale networking to enterprise cloud, today announced the availability of Cumulus Linux 3.2, the latest version of its best-in-class Open Networking Operating System (OS) for Data-Center Switches. The new release introduces a range of features that make the path to web-scale networking simple and more consumable for customers, including general availability of the recently announced Network Command Line Utility (NCLU) feature.

With mainstream adoption of public and private clouds driving more organizations toward web-scale IT principles centered around open systems, the new functionality in Cumulus Linux 3.2 deepens the features that enable network engineers to make data-center networking more efficient, flexible, and easier to operate at scale.

New features in Cumulus Linux 3.2 include:

• NCLU: NCLU provides a uniform way to access Linux networking tools through a modern and simple to use interface. NCLU provides users with one central point from which they can manually drive the system, giving them the ability to run the network in a manner familiar to network engineers while retaining all the benefits of standardizing on Linux to achieve significant operational efficiencies. NCLU has embedded help and configuration suggestions making the transition to Cumulus Linux straightforward for network operators.
• PIM: Protocol-Independent Multicast — commonly used for video streaming in media businesses, for market data feeds in financial services, and other enterprise applications — enables efficient data distribution over Internet Protocol (IP). With the availability of PIM, these organizations can now build networks utilizing a web-scale networking ethos.
• System Snapshots and Rollback: An industry first, snapshot and rollback of the entire system eliminates risk from system upgrades by enabling users to save, and revert to, a previous safe state in the event of any error. Unlike traditional solutions, Cumulus Linux provides unmatched flexibility with third party and custom apps; snapshots preserve these applications and scripts, fully leveraging the flexibility and power of an Open Network OS.
• EVPN (coming soon): Ethernet Virtual Private Network (EVPN) simplifies the operation of a highly scalable VXLAN network negating the need for a proprietary vendor-specific dedicated controller. Relying on an industry standard MP-BGP based control plane, EVPN enables a controllerless overlay architecture that scales much better than a controller-based solution while simplifying the overall Network Virtualization configuration and avoiding unnecessary flooding across VXLAN tunnels.

“We looked at Cumulus Linux because it supported a wide range of interfaces, and is highly scalable,” said Brian Lubelczyk, Director Network & Security Infrastructure, Athena Health. “As we started further into our web-scale journey we realised that the integrations Cumulus has with Puppet, Git and Slack make it a much more powerful tool than originally thought. We’ve now got to a place where our operations team can replace or install switches with no participation from my team at all. We’ve reduced the operationalize time from 18 hours to 30 minutes.”

“From the very beginning we’ve always strived to make the Cumulus Linux platform ever more flexible, scalable, and usable for networking engineers of all backgrounds,” said JR Rivers, CTO and Co-founder, Cumulus Networks. “With web-scale networking gaining mainstream adoption, these new features arm engineers with a set of tools that will make their own journey to highly scalable networks even easier.”

More than 500 organizations of all sizes – from small businesses to the largest web-scale data centers in the world – use Cumulus Linux, the original operating system for web-scale networking, to build affordable, high-capacity networks.

Cumulus Linux 3.2, available now, provides all the ingredients to enable easier and more flexible networks for all public, private, and hybrid cloud environments.

Additional information

Try Cumulus Linux 3.2 functionality with Cumulus VX: https://cumulusnetworks.com/cumulus-vx/
Cumulus Linux Product Page: https://cumulusnetworks.com/cumulus-linux/overview/
Cumulus Linux 3.2 Overview Blog: https://cumulusnetworks.com/blog/web-scale-networking-cumulus-linux-announcing-3-2

Source: Cumulus Network
With Business Wire