Startup Kaloom Inc. is trying to upend the software-defined data center market with the launch today of its “Software-Defined Fabric” product for hyperscale and multicloud computing infrastructure environments.

Data center fabrics are not a new concept. Essentially they are a simplified system of switches and servers and the interconnections between them, which are represented as a “fabric.”

Yet they can provide a more flexible data center architecture wherein a server node can connect to any node, and where any switch node can connect to any server node. Key to their design is the so-called “flattened architecture,” which means using just one or two tiers of switches and traffic, as opposed to the multitier architecture of traditional data center networks.

The emergence of trends such as cloud computing, big data, virtualization and dynamic applications is helping to popularize data center fabrics, because traditional multitier network architectures struggle to manage the volume and scale of the data that these new technologies process. Multitier architectures were built to facilitate traffic from the data center to end users only, or “north-south traffic.” Data fabrics, on the other hand, also support “east-west traffic,” which is traffic that flows within the data center and is critical for cloud computing, big data and virtualization.

With that in mind, Kaloom is launching a software-defined data center networking fabric that it said features a number of unique elements useful for cloud providers, telecommunications firms and other large enterprises.

For one thing, Kaloom’s SDF is “container-based,” meaning it can boost the ability to scale and the overall performance of container networking. The fabric’s architecture is designed in such a way that the data plane is offloaded from virtual machines in order to provide lower compute and networking latency.

“By offloading data plane functions from virtual machines and containers, Kaloom’s SDF delivers an increase of up to 2x in throughput with a 7x reduction in latency, improving overall networking efficiency by a factor of 5-10x,” the company claimed.

Kaloom’s SDF, which comprises virtual routers, virtual switches and virtual gateways, also provides better automation and programmability functions, and can run on “white box” servers and storage gear, the company said. That should help customers to reduce their capital expenditure since unbranded hardware is usually much cheaper than higher-end, branded systems.

Other benefits include “self-forming” and “self-discovery” capabilities that enable zero touch provisioning. As a result, Kaloom said, networking provisioning time can be reduced from several days to a matter of minutes.

Bob Laliberte, practice director and senior analyst for networking at Enterprise Strategy Group, indicated that he was impressed with Kaloom’s offering.

“Network automation, programmability and, particularly, container-based solutions that are lightweight in their use of networking and computing resources are of significant interest in telco, hyperscale and multi-data center environments,” Laliberte said. “Kaloom’s SDF is focused on and takes advantage of these key emerging trends.”

Kaloom is selling its SDF via a pay-as-you-grow subscription model, based on the number of active customer-facing ports.

Image: Kaloom