PLUMgrid Delivers Suite of Tools for OpenStack Clouds

This week, PLUMgrid, which specializes in virtual network infrastructure for OpenStack cloud deployments, announced the availability of its Open Networking Suite (ONS) version 2.0 with expanded support for OpenStack distributions and network functions. The company claims that "PLUMgrid ONS for OpenStack is the industry’s first software-only virtual networking suite that provides terabits of scale out performance, production-grade resiliency, and secure multi-tenancy for businesses to build agile cloud networks."

There are more and more dashboards and suites of tools arriving for OpenStack, and some of them will become standardized. According to Awais Nemat, co-founder and CEO, PLUMgrid:

"OpenStack clouds need robust, scalable, and secure networking technologies that are simple to deploy and operate with key distros in the industry. With ONS 2.0, we are partnering with OpenStack distro leaders and providing a comprehensive set of software based networking capabilities for OpenStack users, without any hardware. Additionally, we now give our customers a dramatically simplified deployment experience, one that supports their choice of distro with the advanced container and security features they need.”

PLUMgrid has partnered with leading OpenStack distributions to focus on  compatibility.

In collaboration with Red Hat, PLUMgrid is announcing support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5 (RHEL-OSP 5) with ONS 2.0. The support ensures compatibility for customers who leverage functions provided by RHEL-OSP5 and ONS 2.0. In addition to Red Hat, PLUMgrid is partnering with Piston, Mirantis, Canonical and Oracle to support ONS for OpenStack cloud implementations.

So what does the suite of tools offer? It includes a Life Cycle Manager, which purportedly streamlines ONS software installation to rapidly deploy OpenStack cloud networks. Embedded in the Life Cycle Manager is an installer that automatically detects the OpenStack distribution and selects the appropriate ONS software packages to deploy. "The smart installer dramatically reduces the installation effort and time, allowing users to focus on building advanced cloud applications," PLUMgrid claims.

ONS 2.0 also has a portfolio of virtual network functions including routing, switching with Private VLAN, security policies, NAT, and DHCP.

You can visit www.plumgrid.com for more on the suite, and there is a FAQ document found here.