New Linux Foundation Members Advance Massively Scalable, Secure Infrastructure

CoreOS, Cumulus Networks and Rackspace Drive Linux Innovation With Modern Internet and Cloud Computing  

SAN FRANCISCO, May 19, 2014 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that CoreOS, Cumulus Networks and Rackspace® Hosting are joining the organization. Additionally, Rackspace is becoming a Xen Project member joining ARM, NetApp and Verizon Terremark – other recent companies participating in the open source virtualization project. 

Today’s data center is undergoing a massive transformation as advancements in software, cloud and network computing take off. From the virtualization layer to networking hardware, Linux and open source are critical to modern computing and a new generation of cloud services and applications. Today’s new Linux Foundation members are part of this market shift and see open source as the lynchpin for optimal scalability, efficiencies, security and data center savings. 

More information about today’s newest Linux Foundation members:

CoreOS is a new Linux distribution for massive server deployments.  By providingwarehouse-scale computing on top of a minimal operating system, CoreOS enables any engineer to utilize advanced infrastructure previously limited to Internet giants like Google and Facebook.  By incorporating Docker container technology, CoreOS helps companies secure their stack and increases the capabilities of the modern server infrastructure.

“The best thing about CoreOS is that we are helping alleviate the pain points for operations teams while helping move the Internet forward,” said Alex Polvi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CoreOS. “The Linux Foundation, like CoreOS, is actively involved in improving the security and reliability of Internet. This expertise as well as their mentorship with kernel development is invaluable to us as a growing company.”

Cumulus Networks makes the first Linux operating system for networking hardware and fills a critical gap in realizing the true promise of the software-defined data center. Just as Linux completely transformed the economics and innovation on the server side of the data center, Cumulus®Linux® will do the same for the network. It is radically reducing the costs and complexities of operating modern data center networks for service providers and enterprises.

“Linux is the foundation for establishing open networking and interoperability across the data center and we consider our Linux Foundation membership as an important part of our commitment to the open networking,” said Nolan Leake, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Cumulus Networks. “Cumulus Linux allows organizations to choose the best hardware, software, applications and network architectures to suit their business needs. With no vendor lock-in, organizations can build scalable data centers with a network that is much faster, far simpler and more affordable than incumbent models.

Rackspace is a leader in managed cloud and founder of OpenStack^®, the open-source operating system for the cloud. Hundreds of thousands of customers look to Rackspace to deliver the best-fit infrastructure for their IT needs, leveraging a product portfolio that allows workloads to run where they perform best—whether on the public cloud, private cloud, dedicated servers, or a combination of platforms. Rackspace, which has used the Xen Project hypervisor for several years, supports hundreds of thousands of virtual machines and millions of snapshots with the software. 

“The Linux Foundation supports the open technologies that are the building blocks of our cloud offerings,” said John Engates, Chief Technology Officer at Rackspace. “It is more than Linux: The Linux Foundation supports emerging SDN technologies like OpenDaylight and security work through the Core Infrastructure Initiative to help companies such as Rackspace deliver products with value, performance, speed and reliability.”

“Today’s new members are deeply entrenched with open technologies, choosing them to achieve superior energy efficiency, simplicity, scalability and cost-effectiveness while maintaining high availability,” said Amanda McPherson, Chief Marketing Officer at The Linux Foundation. “Both new and established companies are interested in joining and investing in collaborative, open projects because doing so directly benefits their own product and service offerings.”

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux and collaborative software development. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system and collaborative software development by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Collaborative Projects, Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original research and content that advances the understanding of Linux and collaborative software development. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org. 

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo, Tizen, and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.