Software-defined networking startup SnapRoute Inc. today launched its new Cloud Native Network Operating System, almost two years to the day after landing a $25 million funding round.

SnapRoute, like other software-defined network operators, offers a more flexible alternative to proprietary switches that’s meant to help DevOps teams roll out application updates faster. The company said enterprises are eager to improve application delivery continuously, and that its CN-NOS product can enable that.

CN-NOS is an alternative to using proprietary network switches that are generally built atop a rigid code base and therefore can’t facilitate the rapid release of new application updates. The problem with these legacy networks is they create what SnapRoute says is a “brittle environment” that’s prone to outages and restricts collaboration between DevOps teams and network engineers. That hurts the ability to organizations to respond to changing business dynamics, company officials said.

SnapRoute’s CN-NOS fixes this brittle environment with its lightweight nature. The network is hosted in the cloud, built using software containers and based on a microservices architecture, made up of only the components that its users need. That minimalist approach is ideal for fast-moving updates, taking less effort to deploy than on traditional networks since there are fewer lines of code to refresh.

“By utilizing containerized microservices and a Cloud Native approach, we can break the silos that exist between networking and DevOps,” SnapRoute co-founder Adam Casella explained in a blog post last November describing the company’s network OS. “Managing the network using the same methods as DevOps allows automated CI/CD test pipelines to ensure these infrastructure components can be tested in concert. They are controlled by leveraging the same API mechanism and the same operational approaches as compute, lowering the barrier for cross-team collaboration.”

Photo: SnapRoute/Facebook