Lumina Networks, an open source software-defined networking (SDN) company, a Brocade spin-off, has announced the closing of its $10 million Series A financing, including $8 million in new funding led by Verizon Ventures. Other new investors included AT&T and Rahi Systems.
Operating independently, following a spin-off from Brocade in August 2017, Lumina Networks will use the funds to support the development of new products and “innovative” solutions using the Lumina SDN Controller powered by OpenDaylight and for expansion of its business in Europe and Japan.
“This investment by both Verizon and AT&T demonstrates the strategic importance of open source networking to the automation and digitization of their networks,” said Andrew Coward, CEO, and founder of Lumina Networks. “We understand the value of our mission to take open source networking out of the labs of our customers and into production deployment. This funding will enable us to reach a wider customer base and realize the industry vision of easily deployable open source software-defined networking (SDN).”
Lumina Networks doesn’t believe in selling turnkey solutions, but they also don’t believe in leaving the introduction and integration of its products to the Cloud Service Provider (CSP). The company thinks that it can serve as the catalyst for a company’s digital transformation initiatives, helping out on the heavy lifting while teaching its customers how to manage their network from the core to the edge and think outside the (hardware) box. With SDN, the Lumina Networks tries to separate the business logic of the carrier – which would define the services – from the underlying hardware and from the vendors.
Scalable SDN
“SDN has emerged as a key architectural model in delivering the promised goals of next-generation wireless networks such as 5G by enabling high speeds and low latency at lower cost points,” said Alexander Khalin, Director at Verizon Ventures. “Open source is instrumental to Verizon’s digital transformation, and the team at Lumina Networks has built world-class, carrier-grade products and solutions in this space and truly understands how to effectively work with network operators on their transformational journey. We look forward to their continued success in this field.”
“SDN is at the heart of our network transformation, and we’ve committed to virtualizing and software-controlling 75% of our core network functions by 2020,” added Chris Rice, Senior Vice President, AT&T Labs, Domain 2.0 Architecture and Design. “Lumina‘s leadership and work in OpenDaylight is important to creating a scalable software-defined network. Their open source business model is what our industry is moving to. Much of our future network will be powered by open source software, such as our white box initiative, and we’re excited to help drive innovation and collaboration in this space.”
