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.

Comments

Re:Microsoft Broadband Networking Wireless Router

[Anonymous Coward]

Shill much?

Re:Microsoft Broadband Networking Wireless Router

[Anonymous Coward]

> same technology they use in space shuttles

You mean the ones in the museum?
I suppose it is plausible that windows software could be behind the the museum box with a button that say 'touch here to play a informative video'?

Can we finally replace Cisco now?

[erroneus]

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.

Re:Can we finally replace Cisco now?

[evilviper]

How many Cisco certified people do you know that don't know anything about networking??

The CCNA was always an entry-level certification. Point me to a clueless CCNP or CCIE and I'll be surprised. Of course certification isn't a prereq for knowing what you're doing, either.

It's the brand name that makes them important and the brand name that makes these devices valuable.

There's definitely significant brand-name mark-up on their hardware, but that's NOT why Cisco is valuable. Cisco is dominant because of network effects... There are lots of people who know the Cisco ios CLI, and the intricacies of their specific product lines. This is in-part because Cisco is dominant, and it lends itself to more dominance, as saving a few hundred dollars on a switch isn't worth the retraining needed for your admin to learn to manage something different, or dealing with different support, billing, etc.

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, and Windows and Linux can both serve web pages... Does that mean you'd just switch back and forth between them without a second thought? No, you'll stick with one or the other (whichever your IT staff is familiar with), until the benefits of the other become overwhelming, and are worth retraining or new hiring.

Cisco hardware only needs to stay inexpensive enough that it's not worth the hassle of using a different brand. If you've got a huge network, that's not the case, and a few percent savings will add up. But for smaller networks, the savings usually really isn't worth the hassle.

FWIW, I'm not a Cisco fan, but the business world isn't as irrational as you claim.

Re:Can we finally replace Cisco now?

[evilviper]

This is the first time I see anyone arguing that market domination by brand X (in any market) is good because of the network effect.

Since there's no anti-competitive, lock-in or monopoly aspect to Cisco's dominance, you'd be hard-pressed to claim that it is harmful. I specifically pointed out that the hurdle to switching to some other vendor isn't very high, just that a mix of different network equipment is anti-productive, even if there's some up-front savings to be had.

The dominance of brand X is good because its products are so idiosyncratic that you need a lot of people to use it so that you could have a pool of people from which you could hire someone to manage it.

No. Cisco's products are no more idiosyncratic than any other networking gear. And there's no networking gear out there which you can buy and not need someone to manage.

I'm not sure what particular logical fallacy this is but I'm sure there is one.

No logical fallacy, just you playing dumb (or are you playing?).

Re:Microsoft Broadband Networking Wireless Router

[evilviper]

by Professional Develop (2957023):
Doesn't change the fact that Professional Develop is right.

LOL!

You forgot to click the "Post Anonymously" check-box. The internet is hard...

Re:Microsoft Broadband Networking Wireless Router

[BitZtream]

If your going to make an OSS router, you start with FreeBSD, which has been the fastest routing stack on the planet and has been for over 10 years.

Starting with Linux tells you they didn't engineer the project, they buzz word managed it.

At no point does using Microsoft * make sense for infrastructure

Re:so sick of this shit.

[Tailhook]

giving neither a link to the source nor direct credit. I dont see GPL anywhere on the site.

There are multiple direct source links here, each with related licenses called out. The GPL licence is mentioned multiple times on that page.

nor direct credit

Direct credit appears in several places, including here.

"The Cumulus Linux software distribution is based on Debian. It provides the same Linux capabilities as Debian with the addition of networking packages."

None of this is more than 1 or 2 clicks into the public site. Stop making stuff up.

Andreeson Horowitz funded startup

[charnov]

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.

Where to buy?

[rainer_d]

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?

Re:Microsoft Broadband Networking Wireless Router

[cas2000]

yeah, it's so they don't have to release the source to their changes.

that's great for juniper, but completely irrelevant when the topic is GPL router software.

BTW, back in the early and mid 90s, freebsd had a better networking stack. that was a long time ago, back in the days of linux versions 0.99.x and 1.x. Linux caught up and passed them. just as importantly, linux has support for many more networking devices and chipsets than freebsd.