Cumulus Networks Among First to Receive Nutanix Networking and Security Validation

Cumulus Networks, a leading provider of enterprise Open Networking solutions, announced today that it is among the first to receive the “Nutanix Ready – Networking and Security” validation for the Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor. The validation makes it simple for enterprises to add Cumulus Linux network switches to Nutanix hyper-converged infrastructure to provide an intelligent software-defined data center.

Nutanix customers can install Cumulus Linux on 31 different networking platforms from seven different hardware switch vendors and multiple CPU architectures. With Cumulus Linux, data center switches can be treated just like servers running a native Linux OS. This gives flexibility at all levels and provides the stability of Linux running in the entire rack.

Perth Radiological Clinic is one business that has already selected Cumulus Networks and Nutanix to improve performance and agility for its overall IT infrastructure. A leader in advanced medical imaging, and with 15 sites throughout Perth, the company needed a solution that allowed it to make every image taken by each of its clinicians available to all authorized viewers via its data center, regardless of their location.

Thanks to the simplicity and familiarity of Linux along with the convergence solution from Nutanix, the clinic has been able to improve speed and performance, and avoid the consulting and hiring costs normally associated with such implementations.

“Before we embarked on this project, none of us wanted to learn a new switching model,” said George Hewitt, infrastructure and development manager at Perth Radiological Clinic. “We just wanted solid, reliable Ethernet that we could grow as the network required. With Cumulus Linux, we were able to move away from a Fibre Channel/SAN framework to a more modern way of supporting our business growth. Cumulus Networks delivered the fastest response time from any support team for networking that I’ve ever experienced.”

Perth Radiological’s implementation was integrated by Cumulus Networks and Nutanix partner BEarena. Darren Ashley, Managing Director, BEarena, said: “Complexity is an unnecessary evil in today’s modern datacentre. Customers want to scale to meet demand as required, and not manage bits and bytes of infrastructure. The Cumulus Networks approach of intelligence in distributed software components delivers agility, and choice. Coupling Cumulus Networks with Nutanix Webscale technology enables total automation of provisioning new applications and services, with almost a zero touch approach to ongoing management of the platform.”

Switches running Cumulus Linux enable fast and easy expansion for Nutanix pods and deliver the following key advantages for enterprises:

• Flexiblity to scale on demand: Enterprises can boost their compute, network and storage resources incrementally as they grow.
• Hardware vendor choice: Enterprises can tightly integrate compute (servers), network and storage resources into a single, cost-effective platform.
• Extremely fast time to production: Ability to customize, simplify and leverage open standards from working with Cumulus Linux means customers can plan for architectures to scale without performance or deployment bottlenecks.
• Predictable and reliable ROI, and lower TCO: Converged solutions deliver server, network and storage resources that are preconfigured in harmony, minimizing risk and creating a predictable cost model and return on investment (ROI).

“The shared vision of Nutanix and Cumulus Networks is to build intelligence distributed in software on the latest industry-standard hardware platforms,” said JR Rivers, CEO and co-founder, Cumulus Networks. “Being among the first to receive this validation means our customers can reap the many benefits of converged architectures to realize both massive scale and rapid feature velocity.”