Cloudscaling has released its 2.5 version of its Open Cloud System, giving enterprise implementers of the private cloud an opportunity to test its network virtualization concepts, first announced last April.
With Release 2.5, Cloudscaling has joined the competition between VMware and Cisco Systems to supply virtualized networking to the future software-defined data center and private-enterprise cloud. Cloudscaling is inside the OpenStack cloud software camp, but its alliance with Juniper Networks on software-defined networking puts it ahead of other participants on the SDN front.
Asked if that meant Cloudscaling was forking the OpenStack networking component, dubbed Neutron (formerly Quantum), CTO Randy Bias said no, Cloudscaling’s approach capitalized on Juniper Networks’ ability to plug SDN into the Neutron platform, using OpenStack APIs.
“Neutron is an API interface to networking as a service… We don’t ever change that, if we don’t have to,” said Bias in an interview. The Neutron approach to virtual networking is to provide a platform with standard APIs into which different companies may plug their products. The platform provides a software framework, sitting atop network hardware, that allows a network application to configure and reconfigure network devices as needed.