Oracle and Pluribus team up, flip the switch on Cisco SDN killer

Oracle has signed a technology access and development deal with startup Pluribus Networks to nibble away at Cisco's proprietary networking business.

The database giant has announced the deal to develop and test "a number" of software-defined networking (SDN) technologies for OpenStack with Pluribus.

Oracle said the fruits of the agreement would enable customers to manage Oracle Solaris 11 nodes using the OpenStack Nova plugin, to look after Pluribus Network switches using the OpenStack Neutron plugin, and to manage Oracle Solaris-based ZS3 Series storage system via the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Cinder Driver.

Oracle said this would "provide and idea platform for the SDN features" scheduled in the next upgrade of Solaris 11.

Pluribus recently certified Oracle Solaris 11 on its Freedom series server switch running the Netvisor bare-metal network hypervisor.

The company's newly released Frankenswitch targets other Cisco switches serving high-traffic environments. It also comes with greater analytical capabilities and is supposedly more open.

Oracle, meanwhile, has begun pushing into SDN as a new field to take business from network hardware companies just like Cisco.

In January Larry Ellison's firm bought Corente, which manages and provisions applications and services regardless of IP network, transport type, access, security or provider over a wide area. ®