Akanda, a start-up incubated with DreamHost since 2012, launched out of stealth mode to deliver an open source Network Function Virtualization (NFV) platform for cloud service providers. The platform is already in use by 500+ tenants at Dreamhost and supporting 1,000s of VMs in its cloud compute service. DreamHost is now spinning-off the solution into Akanda, a start-up whose mission will be to accelerate open source NFV for cloud operators.
Akanda NFV implementation provides OpenStack integrated L3 network virtualization on a VMWare NSX L2 overlay. It interfaces with the OpenStack Neutron REST APIs and includes a sophisticated management and orchestration platform to monitor, configure, and manage virtualized routers. In the future, Akanda will be extended to virtualize additional network functions, including load balancing and firewalls, and will feature pluggable backends to alternative L2 overlays.
The company said intends to work collaboratively with all emerging open source communities and NFV projects including OpenStack Neutron, OPNFV and OpenDaylight.
DreamHost is providing $1.5 million in seed capital to Akanda. The team includes key former stakeholders in Inktank (now part of RedHat), the company that transformed the future of storage with the Ceph open source storage system. Henrik Rosendahl has been appointed Akanda’s CEO. Simon Anderson, DreamHost’s CEO, will Chair the Akanda Board, and Jonathan LaCour, VP Cloud at DreamHost, will serve as a Director and technical advisor.
“Open Source is again proving to be the best way to tackle large, integrated software projects,” said Henrik Rosendahl, CEO of Akanda, Inc. “There is huge demand for open solutions up and down the networking software stack, and Akanda is well placed to garner new contributors and wider adoption given its roots as a core production-grade NFV platform at DreamHost.”
“DreamHost is excited to be co-founding and backing a new open source venture in Akanda,” said Simon Anderson, CEO of DreamHost. “We’ve been running Akanda in production with thousands of compute instances for over a year, and we’re confident the platform will be incredibly flexible and useful to cloud service providers worldwide as it develops and matures.”
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