Nvidia announces that it is taking over Cumulus Networks. The start-up specialises in a Linux operating system focused on data center switches. The price of the acquisition is currently still unknown.
Cumulus Networks was founded in 2010 and was financed by investors such as Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Cumulus supplies, among others, NASA and PayPal.
The acquisition has everything to do with Nvidia’s earlier acquisition of Mellanox Technologies. The supplier of network equipment supplies systems with the Cumulus system. In this way, Nvidia is no longer dependent on another party to supply the operating system for the network equipment. The acquisition of Mellanox Technologies cost 6.9 billion dollars (6.4 billion euros).
In a blog post, Nvidia’s vice president, Amir Katz, writes that the acquisition ensures that the entire networking stack can now be better optimised with Cumulus’ analytical tools. “The ability to innovate across the stack now allows us to work on a large scale on a software-defined data center,” says Katz.
Broadcom’s switches also use Cumulus’ software. Nvidia has not disclosed anything about what will happen with the delivery of Cumulus software to the manufacturer.