Home Enterprise News Bits: Cavium, Cisco, Linux, Commvault, Cumulus, Apstra, & Pure

News Bits: Cavium, Cisco, Linux, Commvault, Cumulus, Apstra, & Pure

by Adam Armstrong

This week’s News Bits we look at a number of small announcements, small in terms of the content not the impact they have. Cavium will contribute the first programmable Wedge 100C Switch design to the Open Compute Project (OCP) Foundation. Cisco has a handful of announcements including a new data and analytics training portfolio, all-in-one, cloud based meeting room product, and its intent to acquire AppDynamics. The Linux Foundation has several conferences around the world and will now have conferences in China in 2017. Commvault has launched reference architecture for AWS. Cumulus’s Linux network OS will run on Facebook’s backpack switch. Apstra announced integration with Facebook Wedge 100. And Pure Storage announced general availability of its FlashBlade product.


This week’s News Bits we look at a number of small announcements, small in terms of the content not the impact they have. Cavium will contribute the first programmable Wedge 100C Switch design to the Open Compute Project (OCP) Foundation. Cisco has a handful of announcements including a new data and analytics training portfolio, all-in-one, cloud based meeting room product, and its intent to acquire AppDynamics. The Linux Foundation has several conferences around the world and will now have conferences in China in 2017. Commvault has launched reference architecture for AWS. Cumulus’s Linux network OS will run on Facebook’s backpack switch. Apstra announced integration with Facebook Wedge 100. And Pure Storage announced general availability of its FlashBlade product.

Cavium Contributes 1st Programmable Wedge 100C Switch Design To OCP

Cavium Inc. announced that it was contributing its Wedge 100C switch hardware design to the OCP foundation. The Wedge 100C is a top of the rack switch that features 10G/25G/40G/50G/100G server connectivity and 100GbE uplinks to the aggregation layer of the network. The Wedge 100C design uses Cavium XPliant CNX88091, programmable production-ready Ethernet switch.

Cavium XPliant family

Cisco Announces New Data & Analytics Training Portfolio

Data analytics is becoming a major player in the new digital world. Cisco is helping users capitalize on all of the benefits with its new data and analytics training portfolio. Benefits include:

  • The new data and analytics training offerings teaches learners an agile data integration method that simplifies access to information. This streamlined approach lets businesses pull greater value from growing volumes of data more quickly, without the need for additional resources.
  • The Integrated Infrastructure for Big Data and Analytics course trains an individual to design scalable, reliable and intelligent data center solutions using Cisco UCS integrated infrastructure for big data and analytics.
  • The Data Virtualization training provides practical, hands-on skills with the Cisco Data Virtualization Platform, including the Cisco Information Server and Business Directory.

Cisco Learning Services

Cisco Announces Spark Board & Spark Meetings

Cisco is announcing its new Spark Board to “end the pain of meetings.” The Spark Board is a cloud-powered, all-in-one device that is a combination of interactive whiteboard and conferencing device. The Spark Board enables video conferences where presentations can be given and shared, while notes are taken. The Spark Board is powered by Spark Meetings, which is the next step up from Cisco’s popular WebEx application.

A 55” version of the Spark Board is expected to be available later this month for $4,990. Spark Meetings will be available for $199/month. Cisco will release a 70” version of Spark Board later this year for $9,990.

Cisco Spark Board

Cisco Announces Intent To Acquire AppDynamics

Cisco also announced this week that it intends to acquire AppDynamics. AppDynamics is a privately held intelligence software company. It is primarily used for its cloud application and business-monitoring platform. Cisco will acquire the company for a reported $3.7 billion in cash and assumed equity awards.

AppDynamics main site

LinuxCon Comes to China

The Linux Foundation has held several events around the world in support of the open source community, including the Apache Big Data event last year in Vancouver, BC where StorageReview was on location. For the first time in the foundation’s history they will be hosting events in China. June 19-20, 2017, the Linux Foundation will be hosting LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen in Beijing, China.

Linux Foundation main site

Commvault Launches Reference Architecture for AWS

Commvault launched new validated reference architecture for AWS cloud. This new reference architecture enables AWS cloud customers to take advantage of Commvault software for data protection such as backup, archive, and recovery. Existing customers will be able to apply their licenses to applications enabled through AWS Marketplace.

The new reference architecture is available now through Commvault direct and on AWS Marketplace.

Commvualt's AWS page

Cumulus Linux Network OS To Run On Facebook Backpack

Cumulus Networks announced that its Linux network OS will now be available for Facebook’s Backpack modular open switch. Cumulus Linux network OS also supports Wedge 100.

Cumulus on Backpack

Apstra Announces Integration With Facebook Wedge 100

Apstra, Inc. announced that its new operating system was now generally available, Apstra Operating System (AOS) 1.1.1. It is also announcing that the newly available AOS is integrating with the Facebook Wedge 100, Facebook’s 2nd generation top-of-rack network switch.

Apstra AOS page

Pure Storage Announced GA Of FlashBlade

Today Pure Storage announced the generally availability and customer momentum of its new FlashBlade. Announced back in March of 2016, FlashBlade is an elastic scale-out system that delivers all-flash performance to petabyte-scale data sets at economics of less than $1 per usable GB. FlashBlade is shipping now in both 8.8TB and 52TB blade capacities and is powered with Elasticity 1.2 software.

Pure Storage FlashBlade