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Cumulus Linux in a Virtual Environment

Cumulus Linux in a virtual environment enables you to become familiar NVIDIA networking technology, learn and test Cumulus Linux in your own environment, and create a digital twin of your IT infrastructure to validate configurations, features, and automation code.

Virtual Environments

NVIDIA provides these virtual environments:

  • NVIDIA Air is a cloud hosted platform that works exactly like a real world production deployment. NVIDIA AIR provides pre-built demos using the reference topology. You can also build your own reference topology and configurations. See NVIDIA Air User Guide.
  • Cumulus VX is a free virtual appliance with the Cumulus Linux operating system. You can install Cumulus VX on a supported hypervisor and configure the VMs with the reference topology or create your own topology. See Cumulus VX.

Cumulus Linux in a virtual environment contains the same Cumulus Linux operating system as NVIDIA Ethernet switches and contains the same software features. You have the full data plane functionality through the Linux kernel, as well as layer 2 VLANs and both VXLAN bridging and VXLAN routing capabilities.

Unsupported Features in a Virtual Environment

Due to hardware specific implementations, virtual environments do not support certain Cumulus Linux features.

Feature Supported in a Virtual Environment
ACL configuration with the cl-acltool command No
In Service System Upgrade - ISSU No
Precision Time Protocol - PTP No
Port Security No
SPAN and ERSPAN No
Temperature and sensor outputs Artificial temperature and sensor outputs for simulation.
Packet marking and remarking No
QoS buffer management and buffer monitoring No
QoS shaping No
What Just Happened (WJH) No
Network Address Translation - NAT No
Adaptive Routing No
Storm control No