News

PLUMgrid SDN Suite Works with Red Hat OpenStack

• By David Ramel
• 06/03/2016

Players in the emerging software-defined networking (SDN) arena are continuing on the path to interoperability as the industry shakes itself out, with PLUMgrid Inc. announcing its SDN suite is certified for the Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8.

PLUMgrid, which describes itself as a leader in SDN and network functions virtualization (NFV), makes the Open Networking Suite (ONS) 5.0 for OpenStack. It provides tools to simplify SDN deployments and increase efficiency on OpenStack clouds, such as the Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8. The open source OpenStack project applies new-age networking technologies to software that creates public and private clouds.

"PLUMgrid ONS 5.0 is among the industry's first software-only virtual networking solutions to be certified with Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8," the company said in a statement this week. "Red Hat's certification requires passing an extensive test suite to ascertain compatibility with OpenStack APIs and other functions implemented in Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8."

The certification is the latest interoperability development for PLUMgrid, which has been busy forming partnerships and working with other vendors in the wide-open SDN/NFV industry that seems to be seeking consolidation and cooperation. The company in April announced ONS 5.0, which supports the recent Kilo and Liberty OpenStack releases. Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8 is based on community's Liberty release.

PLUMgrid last year teamed up with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. to provide more automation of OpenStack implementations. It also forged a pact with Cumulus Networks to provide the benefits of SDN on OpenStack deployed on bare-metal hardware.

PLUMgrid's software was previously certified for many other earlier Red Hat platform versions, and the new certification continues that trend.

"The certification means that Red Hat customers can more confidently run PLUMgrid ONS via an OpenStack Networking (Neutron) plug-in on Red Hat OpenStack Platforms," the company said.

"PLUMgrid ONS 5.0 recently introduced SDN support for Docker containers, expanded gateway integration with Cisco Nexus 9000, IPv6, PLUMgrid SmartLogs, toolbox wizards and many new enhancements as well as support for OpenStack releases Kilo and Liberty," the company continued. "The PLUMgrid certification with Red Hat enables customers to more rapidly make use of new enhancements in Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8."

Red Hat exec Mike Werner also weighed in on the certification. "We are pleased that PLUMgrid's newest release is certified with Red Hat OpenStack Platform 8, enabling our mutual customers greater trust in our certified and supported solutions," said Werner. "As Red Hat's OpenStack offerings advance, we are happy to work with innovative companies such as PLUMgrid to offer a broad set of complementary solutions to our customers."