Midokura Becomes OpenStack Corporate Sponsor As OpenStack Community Embraces More Networking Options

Network virtualization startup Midokura joined the OpenStack Foundation on Tuesday as a corporate sponsor. Midokura is the steward behind the open source software-defined, networking platform MidoNet that delivers virtualized networking solutions for IaaS platforms such as OpenStack. Midokura open-sourced its MidoNet platform in November 2014 with the intent of democratizing access to its virtualized networking solutions while concurrently launching an enterprise-grade version of MidoNet that includes a layer of professional services aimed at production deployments. Midokura’s MidoNet platform claims scalability, performance and security advantages over the Open vSwitch (OVS) plugin provided by OpenStack. In a press release, Midokura remarked on the value of MidoNet to OpenStack deployments as follows:

As the OpenStack project now hits its five-year mark, nearly two-thirds of users recently surveyed by the OpenStack Foundation still have concerns about OpenStack Neutron. Midokura’s disruptive MidoNet technology fulfills this need by replacing the default OVS plug-in from OpenStack deployments to offer a much more scalable and efficient networking solution for highly virtualized cloud environment. The result is that OpenStack users can easily support production-grade deployments to fulfill explosive enterprise demands – all while benefiting from the freedom of open source by forgoing the need to lock in with a single private vendor.

Here, Midokura highlights the scalability benefits delivered to OpenStack deployments by MidoNet, particularly as it relates to environments with “explosive enterprise demands.” MidoNet decouples OpenStack from network infrastructures by creating an abstraction layer that lies between the physical network and hosts. As a result, users can create a distributed overlay networking infrastructure that allows for changes to the virtual network without corresponding disruptions to the physical infrastructure of the network. The larger significance of MidoNet is that it gives OpenStack customers an enhanced range of options regarding scale-out networking solutions, while remaining true to OpenStack’s open source philosophy and vision. By joining OpenStack as a corporate sponsor, Midokura stands to strengthen its already deep and collaborative relationship with the OpenStack Foundation and position itself more strongly to render MidoNet the de facto networking solution of choice for the OpenStack community.