Cumulus Releases GNU/Linux For Datacenter Routers
alphadogg writes "Start-up Cumulus Networks this week has emerged with a Linux network operating system designed for programmable data centers like the ones Google and Facebook are building. The company's Cumulus Linux OS operating system includes IPv4 and IPv6 routing, plus data center and network orchestration hooks. Much like OpenFlow for independent, software-defined control of network forwarding, Cumulus Linux is intended to run on commodity network hardware and bring Open Source extensibility to high capacity data centers. The head of the company used to work for Cisco and Google."
The distribution is based on Debian and ported to several router platforms. They claim to release most of their code Open Source, but there are at least a few proprietary bits for interfacing to the routing hardware itself.
If you don't want to use Linux in your datacenter setup (and not many of us do), it's better to get a Microsoft router. This is the same technology they use in newest airplanes and space shuttles - ie., top notch tech.
If you don't care about running a datacenter, there is also Windows Azure cloud hosting platform. It directly integrates with your existing MS stack (Visual Studio, IIS server software) and is beauty to work with. I can only recommended Azure so much, but trust me, it's your dreams come true.
- Mark Johnsson
Many peoples sarcasm detectors are broken!
What amazes me is the current level of brand name dominance in technology. (I know, I'm repeating myself so I'll abbreviate) It's all so consumerist. We don't care what it actually does or doesn't do... or even how well it does it. We just care about the brand name.
"Do you know about networking?" "I'm Cisco Certified!!" "That wasn't the question..."
How many Cisco certified people do you know that don't know anything about networking?? I know a lot. It's the brand name that makes them important and the brand name that makes these devices valuable.
It tickles me to hear people say "Linux" and "toy" in the same sentence knowing that Cisco uses Linux in almost everything these days. That's like saying "I own a Lexus, you wouldn't catch me dead in a Toyota... those cars are crap!!" Sorry, but... you know?
And to me the real killer is that networking is 99.999% about being protocol implementation faithful so ALL devices of all brands should do the same damned things. (Yes, I know there are Cisco specific protocols and people should avoid them to avoid vendor lock-in.) Cisco isn't quite as bad as Microsoft, but in some ways, they're worse.
another startup makes the front pages of slasahdot by dick-riding a successful open source project, closing it off as best it can, and giving neither a link to the source nor direct credit. I dont see GPL anywhere on the site.
by ipv4 and ipv6, do we mean we ticked the little boxes in menuconfig before we compiled debian? because im pretty fucking sure linux has been doing both protocols since 2006.
Programmable datacenter is to google as lights out datacenter was to AOL as smart datacenter was to AT&T. its not actually meant to be an implementable technology any different than that which would be crafted by skilled engineers, architects, and programmers. Its just a neat word to gin up the stock.
'network orchestration hooks.' get ready for support contracts, strategic partnerships, and sla's, because ive never had to use them before to route ipv6, and im not sure how ill use them in the future to do so.
Almost everything from service to download requires me to log in, which certainly betrays the 'used to work at cisco' part of TFS
Good people go to bed earlier.
The proper name of the OS is Linux, not GNU/Linux. Jesus, it's right there in the official announcement, people.
God save us from GNU zealots. This is why I still recommend Windows and OS X to my friends and family, because I don't hate them enough to expose them to GNU zealots.
The full or proper name of the O/S is GNU/Linux, since the user-space is GNU and the kernel is Linux. The terminology is intended to be fully descriptive.
It's the same with Android which uses a Linux kernel so the full name of the O/S is Android/Linux, but if you ran the Android user-space on top of a BSD kernel then it would be Android/BSD. And so on.
This is a Andreeson Horowitz funded startup founded in 2010. The principles are JR Rivers (formerly of Cisco and Google) http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jr-rivers/3/3b7/372 and Nolan Leake (formerly of Tile and 3Leaf) http://www.linkedin.com/in/nolan. They're pretty darn smart cookies.
That said, I wonder if they are trying to gain some momentum (there seem to be quite a few major players in the SDN crowd since they founded their company) or if they have run out of steam and are trying to get the Open Source crowd involved on the development side... worth keeping an eye on, I guess.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Do they only sell to "large" customers, buying a couple of hundreds a time?
What does such a switch cost, compared to a Switch from Cisco or HP?
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Vyatta is owned by Brocade now. It's not in their best interest to support other hardware vendors. Cumulus is aiming to support all hardware. That's the piece that kills everyone: poor interoperability.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.