Akanda, the only open source network virtualization solution built for OpenStack clouds, today announced Akanda 1.0, a network orchestration platform that simplifies the delivery and management of network services in OpenStack clouds. As the centralized management layer for all OpenStack networking decisions, Akanda enables key virtualized network functions providing routing, load balancing, firewall and more. Akanda also interacts with any L2 overlay based on OVS and Linux bridge, as well as most proprietary solutions to provide lifecycle management of a complete networking stack.

“DreamHost is a global leader in web hosting and cloud services for entrepreneurs and developers,” said Jonathan LaCour, Vice President of Cloud and Development at DreamHost. “We have been a part of the open source community for many years and have decided to replace our proprietary infrastructure with Akanda’s open source network virtualization platform. Combined with our white box switches running Cumulus Linux, Akanda gives us an open, full network stack that is simple to manage at a fraction of the cost.”

“Over the past year OpenStack momentum has continued to grow, yet virtual networking for OpenStack, a key element in the software stack, continues to be confusing with many vendor-specific, or even vendor-proprietary, approaches being promoted,” said Peter Christy, networking research director at 451 Research. “By fully adhering to the beliefs of the open source community and bringing the DreamHost experience to bear, Akanda is providing a powerful and fully open network automation capability for OpenStack clouds, which can only benefit the use and future of OpenStack.”

The Akanda project lives in two main repositories on Github to ease packaging and management:

• Akanda Rug – Orchestration service for managing the creation, configuration and health of Akanda Software Routers in an OpenStack cloud.
• Akanda Appliance – Supporting software for the Akanda Software Router appliance, which is a Linux-based service VM that provides routing and L3+ services in a virtualized network environment. This includes a REST API for managing the appliance via the Akanda Rug orchestration service.

“The first generation SDN solutions were not built for OpenStack. Akanda is providing the critical functions of the OpenStack Neutron API and takes the place of many of the agents that OpenStack Neutron communicates with, acting as a single control point for all networking services,” said Henrik Rosendahl, CEO of Akanda. “Akanda removes the complexity of OpenStack networks to manage DHCP and L3, orchestrate load balancing and VPN Services and overall reduce the number of components required to build, manage and monitor complete virtual networks within your cloud.”