Today, the Foundation is delighted to announce that Canonical and Cumulus Networks are working to bring ONIE (Open Network Install Environment) to the server. ONIE was first created to solve the problem of laying down a network operating system in an open/standard way. The "modern" way to achieve this today is through PXE (Preboot eXecution Environment). Whether you know it or not there is a license fee attached to Nic PXE inclusion. By removing this cost we have an opportunity to yet again drive differentiation and cost out of the hardware we procure.
This is a prime example of how Open Compute is driving collaborative and industry redefining innovation.
“ONIE started as breakthrough technology to enable open networking, bringing freedom and choice of hardware and software for networking users everywhere,” said Reza Malekzadeh, VP of Business at Cumulus Networks. “With Canonical’s commitment this modern and robust provisioning technology can now extend to compute and reach all of the data center infrastructure”.
“We are delighted to commit to full support for ONIE in MAAS, accelerating adoption for modern physical machine provisioning in OCP and beyond," added Mark Shuttleworth.