It’s our pleasure to inform you that Cumulus Networks is announcing our 4th Generation of open, modern network software including a major release of Cumulus Linux 4.0 as well as a minor release of NetQ and NetQ Cloud 2.4.
 
4th-Generation Launch Messaging Summary:
 
As a result of nearly 10 years of focused development, Cumulus Linux 4.0 is the most reliable, robust and performant version. With this fourth generation, Cumulus will continue to enable customers to meet modern network challenges with the best networking software designed to run and operate today’s data center and campus environments. 
 
Cumulus Linux 4.0 includes:
 
  • Support for the widest range of hardware platforms: 134 platforms across 14 ASICs. 
  • Newly added support for Mellanox’s Spectrum-2 chipset for faster performance, Broadcom’s Qumran chipset for deep buffering at the top of rack coming soon, Facebook’s Minipack– an open, modular chassis with a single 12.8TB chip, and additional campus networking platforms from Dell EMC.
  • Migration to the latest, and most advanced, Linux kernel for greater route scale, the latest security updates, and thousands of contributions from the broader Linux community.  
  • Support for SwitchDev, an open source in-kernel abstraction model, providing a standardized way to program switch ASICs and speed development time. 
  • Enhancements to our EVPN implementation (EVPN-PIM and EVPN multi-homing) for Layer 2/Layer3 connectivity, making it the simplest, most scalable, and easiest to configure EVPN solution.   
  • Comprehensive end-to-end automation for Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) workflows including simulation, validation, troubleshooting and NetDevOps practices such as Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC). 
  • The ability to build a single fabric across data center and campus environments enabling a common operational model.
 
For additional details on Cumulus Linux 4.0, please refer to the release notes.
 
Cumulus NetQ 2.4 provides a faster way to validate the root cause of network issues across data center and campus fabrics, utilizing real-time telemetry data. Updates include:  
 
  • Additional deployment models, including an as-a-service cloud-delivery option.
  • Integration with Mellanox’s What Just Happened (WJH) feature for deeper visibility at the packet layer.
  • Enhanced validation for filtering out unwanted warnings.
  • Clustering feature provides ease of deployment and high availability  
  • Threshold Crossing Alert (TCA) enables customizable threshold levels for proactive alerting of network errors or resource issues.