TMCnet News

Backpack Modular Switch Platform Available to Order from Cumulus Networks
[January 24, 2017]

Backpack Modular Switch Platform Available to Order from Cumulus Networks


Today at Facebook's (News - Alert) Disaggregate: Networking event, Cumulus Networks, the leading provider bringing web-scale networking to enterprise cloud, announced that through the company's partnership with Celestica (News - Alert), Backpack is, for the first time, available to order. The Cumulus Linux network OS is now available for Backpack, Facebook's modular switch platform, and supports Wedge 100, the fixed configuration switch platform. Facebook made the hardware designs for both available to the community via the Open Compute Project last year.

"It's been our mission from day one to bring the agility and economics of web-scale networking to companies of all sizes," said JR Rivers, co-founder and CTO of Cumulus Networks. "Through our close work with the team at Facebook and our partner Celestica, we're making it simple for data center operators to take advantage of the first open ecosystem chassis, combined with software proven through production deployments at more than a quarter of the Fortune 50 and some of the world's largest public clouds."

Cumulus Networks will demonstrate Cumulus Linux running on Backpack at the event.

Cumulus Linux is a simple, user-friendly network operating system that makes networking more accessible to operators of all engineering backgrounds. It offers higher programmability, greater flexibility and interoperability, is built for the cloud age, and provides support for over 50 hardware platforms, enabling more control over the supply chain at a fraction of the cost of traditional networking stacks. More than 500 organizations of all sizes ue Cumulus Linux to bring web-scale networking to their enterprise cloud environments.



Based on a distributed architecture, Backpack brings operational efficiencies that traditional chassis lacked. It helps address the increasing demands data-intensive communications place on a network. Now, Backpack running Cumulus Linux provides a simple, scalable solution for enterprises who need greater efficiency and reliability. The system caters to those eager to realize the benefits of web-scale networking and need a solution that is easy to procure and deploy.

With 128x 100G ports in an 8RU chassis, customers receive the following benefits from Backpack:


  • Reliability - Backpack comes with 128x 100G front panel ports, which is equivalent to 12x 1U 100G fixed form factor switches. This reduces sourcing and deployment complexity by eliminating hundreds of cables and optics for the customer.
  • Flexibility - This is the first Open Networking modular design switch that customers can commercially buy and load Cumulus Linux onto.
  • Operational Efficiency - Eliminating supervisors and proprietary communication protocols from traditional chassis greatly improves control plane performance, high availability and troubleshooting. Further, an orthogonal direct chassis architecture enables better airflow and thermal performance, which reduces cooling and power requirements.
  • Scalability - Backpack follows the web-scale principles that allow customers to maintain consistent automated provisioning across all their switches of different form-factors (fixed or chassis).

Alongside Backpack, Cumulus Linux now also supports Facebook's Wedge 100 fixed form-factor 100G switch, originally announced in late 2016. With the future of scaling modern data centers lying with 100G switches that can send faster packets through the data center as applications grow, Wedge 100 compliments the other 50+ hardware platforms supported by Cumulus Linux, providing customers with unrivaled choice and flexibility.

Additional Information:

To pre-order Backpack running Cumulus Linux, please contact Cumulus Networks at [email protected].

About Cumulus Networks

Cumulus Networks is leading the transformation of bringing web-scale networking to enterprise cloud. As the only systems solution that fully unlocks the vertical network stacks of the modern data center, Cumulus Linux allows companies of all sizes to affordably build and efficiently operate their networks just like the world's largest data centers. By allowing operators to use standard hardware components, Cumulus Networks offers unprecedented operational speed and agility, at the industry's most competitive cost. Cumulus Networks has received venture funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Sequoia Capital (News - Alert), Peter Wagner and four of the original VMware founders.

For more information visit cumulusnetworks.com or follow @cumulusnetworks.

CUMULUS, the Cumulus Logo, CUMULUS NETWORKS, and the Rocket Turtle Logo (the "Marks") are trademarks and service marks of Cumulus Networks, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. You are not permitted to use the Marks without the prior written consent of Cumulus Networks.

The registered trademark Linux® is used pursuant to a sublicense from LMI, the exclusive licensee of Linus Torvalds, owner of the mark on a worldwide basis.


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