Akanda, a start-up offering an open source Network Function Virtualization (NFV) platform for cloud service providers, appointed Mark McClain as founding Chief Technology Officer. McClain joins Akanda from his former position as Senior Principal Architect at Yahoo! where he contributed to the strategic planning and architecture expansion of the company’s OpenStack platform implementations. Prior to Yahoo!, McClain held Senior Developer positions at DreamHost, Pictage and SignPost Networks. McClain is also a member of the OpenStack Technical Committee and currently a core member of OpenStack Neutron.
- In November, 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’s 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.
