There has been a lot of discussion in recent years about how “white box” networking gear that uses affordable off-the-shelf components could reduce data center costs, but adoption among enterprises remains limited. Arrcus Inc. wants to change that.

The San Jose, California-based networking software startup exited stealth mode today with $15 million in funding from General Catalyst and Clear Ventures. Arrcus is led by a trio of industry insiders who think they can challenge incumbent suppliers’ hold on this part of the data center market.

The startup’s chief executive officer, Devesh Garg, has made a name for himself in networking chips. He most recently served as the president of EZChip Semiconductors Ltd., a maker of Ethernet processors that was bought by Mellanox Technologies Ltd. for $811 million in 2016. Garg’s co-founders are Keyur Patel and Derek Yeung, two former senior engineers from Cisco Systems Inc. who together hold more than 50 patents.

The Arrcus team has created a network operating system it calls ArcOS. The software can run on white-box switches and routers inside a data center, as well as in the public cloud to automate how data flows among a company’s off-premises workloads.

ArcOS is comprised of a set of software modules that provide various management capabilities for coordinating network operations. Among other things, the platform includes a “hyper-performance resilient control plane” and application programming interfaces that enable companies to create automation workflows. Also included is a telemetry tool that can collect detailed information about network activity for monitoring purposes.

According to Arrcus, the modules that make up ArcOS have been implemented based on a microservices architecture of the same variety that powers modern cloud applications. Administrators can restart a component for maintenance purposes without having to take the entire deployment offline, which reduces downtime.

Arrcus said that ArcOS is undergoing trials at “the world’s largest organizations” with disclosing any specific names. The software is geared toward use in data centers, content delivery networks and carrier infrastructure.

Arrcus’ public debut comes just days after it was reported that Amazon Web Services Inc. may join the white-box networking fray as well by launching homegrown switching products for enterprises. According to The Information, AWS is currently piloting the gear with select customers and could bring the hardware to market within 18 months.

Photo: Pixabay