The Linux Foundation | 30 April 2024
Paraglider streamlines cloud networking across multiple cloud providers and simplifies operations within cloud networks.
SAN FRANCISCO – April 30, 2024 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, is excited to announce the launch of Paraglider, a new open source initiative to simplify the setup and management of networks both within a cloud and across multiple clouds. Launched in collaboration with Aarna Networks, Broadcom, Google Cloud, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Uber, and UC Berkeley, Paraglider is set to redefine how cloud customers provision and manage their networks across multiple cloud providers.
Cloud networks have long faced issues of complexity, requiring users to navigate complicated low-level networking components to achieve their connectivity goals. Paraglider manages this complexity by exposing a high-level API that aligns directly with the tenant's connectivity intent, empowering users to focus on what their networks are trying to achieve, rather than the intricacies of network assembly.
Paraglider differentiates itself by providing a unified, simplified API across clouds to directly specify network-level connectivity needs. By seamlessly creating the necessary networking infrastructure based on a tenant's high-level connectivity intent, users no longer have to worry about the 'how' of their networks and can instead focus on what they want those networks to achieve. Paraglider further enables users to operate across multiple clouds, choosing the right cloud service provider for each element of their workload, without worrying about complex details of Cloud inter-connectivity.
As the Paraglider community works toward the release of a production-ready cloud tenant networking solution, users are encouraged to contribute to its development, explore its capabilities, and extend its functionality to additional Cloud and on-premise infrastructure providers. To learn more about Paraglider and how to participate, please visit the project's website and GitHub repository.
Supporting Quotes
“Aarna has been involved with prior open source multi-cloud networking efforts in Linux Foundation projects such as Akraino where we realized how complex this problem is. We are thrilled to see a dedicated project that will dramatically simplify multi-cloud networking for users. For this reason, we look forward to getting involved with the Paraglider open source project.”
– Amar Kapadia, Co-founder and CEO, Aarna Networks.
"Networking has long been an obstacle to bringing a true cloud operating model to customers’ private and hybrid cloud environments. Simplifying network abstractions for end-users serves to enable a seamless cloud experience in these environments. We were pleased to support the initial academic research that led to the founding of the Paraglider project, and we are committed to continued collaboration with this community. Doing so will enable Broadcom to offer future capabilities that provide the best private and hybrid cloud experiences for our customers."
– Chaitanya (CK) Kodeboyina, Head of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Networking, Broadcom
"Google Cloud has long been a champion of open source and community collaboration. With the rise of multi cloud and hybrid cloud environments, we are working with academia and industry on networking research projects that empower developers to build and deploy apps without having to deal with complex networking issues. We are looking forward to continued contributions and collaboration on Paraglider with the open source community.”
– Ashok Narayanan, Principal Engineer, Google Cloud Networking
“Connecting applications and services across hybrid cloud environments is a significant challenge today. It often requires manual intervention, leading to complexity, service provisioning delays, and errors. We are excited to contribute to the Paraglider initiative, a new community dedicated to developing open hybrid cloud network automation technology to simplify and securely connect services and applications across hybrid cloud environments.”
– Vita Bortnikov, IBM Fellow , Hybrid Cloud, IBM Research
“As Intel continues to prioritize the developer community and open industry practices, we’re proud to see how our contribution to the Paraglider project in the early research stages has evolved into an industry-leading initiative that will greatly benefit open source cloud networking, offering freedom of choice when choosing a provider.”
– Pranav Mehta, VP & Director, Systems and Software Research, Intel Labs.
"Paraglider provides the last missing piece of the puzzle for true Multi-Cloud connectivity in simplifying cloud networking through open collaboration. We look forward to witnessing the transformative impact of Paraglider as we shape a more streamlined and connected future in open source cloud networking."
– Arpit Joshipura, GM Networking, Edge/IOT at the Linux Foundation.
“At Microsoft, we are committed to empowering customers and developers by enabling them to focus more on their application needs and less on mastering complex networking concepts and implementations. We are pleased to contribute and support the launch of Paraglider for the open source networking and developer community.”
– Deepak Bansal, Corporate Vice President and Technical Fellow, Microsoft Azure Core.
“Paraglider fundamentally changes how tenants tackle connecting their workloads. It takes a bold leap to fix the challenges with the status quo. We’re excited to be merging our research with the engineering experience of our collaborators to transform the cloud tenant networking experience.”
–Sarah McClure, PhD Student & Professor Sylvia Ratnasamy, UC Berkeley
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Media Contact
Noah Lehman
The Linux Foundation
nlehman@linuxfoundation.org