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Puppet Labs, Cumulus Networks and Dell Partner on SDN

Puppet Labs announced Cumulus Networks as the most recent partner to launch support for its Puppet Supported Program. Puppet Labs and Cumulus Networks have developed a joint integration so switches running Cumulus Linux, the operating system for open networking, can be managed just as easily as any other Puppet-managed device. The Puppet Supported Program is a certification program that enables Puppet Enterprise customers to extend the benefits of automation across their entire data center.

“The Puppet Supported Program enables more businesses to leverage the power of automation so they can move faster, with even more confidence,” said Nigel Kersten, CIO of Puppet Labs. “Through our work with Cumulus Networks and Dell, joint customers can now extend the benefits of Puppet Enterprise to more parts of their data centers, making SDN and its benefits a reality.”

Building on a previous partnership between Dell and Cumulus Networks, these new integrations provide customers a full stack solution of hardware, operating system and configuration management. While many companies have mature server automation practices and tooling in place, changes to the network are often performed manually, or with vendor-provided tools that are disconnected from other data center operations. As part of this partnership, Cumulus Networks and Puppet Labs have created a native Puppet Enterprise agent for Cumulus Linux and a Cumulus Linux Puppet module.

“Now data center IT teams can automate and manage both the network and the compute infrastructure exactly the same way,” said Reza Malekzadeh, VP Business, Cumulus Networks. “Puppet Enterprise native support for the Cumulus Linux OS equates to immediate OpEx savings as adoption of open networking expands to a broadening range of organizations.”

With the Cumulus Linux Puppet modules and native Puppet Enterprise agent, customers can use Puppet Enterprise to configure and manage everything from compute resources to switch VLANs and interfaces. For those wanting to get started out of the box, Dell and Cumulus Networks have partnered to offer a reference platform on the S6000-ON switch. This allows customers to use a unified change management processes across their servers and switches, enabling faster application deployment.

“As more organizations deploy OpenStack, we expect to see open networking solutions as a major part of those implementations,” said Adnan Bhutta, director of global strategy for Open Networking, Dell. “Dell customers can now build a complete, highly-automated and cost-effective solution with Dell Open Networking switches and Cumulus Linux OS, with Puppet Enterprise for automation across both servers and networking.”

The Puppet Supported Program demonstrates a joint commitment to equipping customers with the tools to manage their infrastructure at the highest levels of reliability and performance. Puppet Labs and its partners have committed to creating joint solutions that enable automation of both platforms and devices with Puppet Enterprise. The Puppet Supported Program’s rigorous certification process delivers customers the benefits of fully tested and supported automation of all leading hardware in today’s data centers.

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Puppet Labs, Cumulus Networks and Dell Partner on SDN

Puppet Labs announced Cumulus Networks as the most recent partner to launch support for its Puppet Supported Program. Puppet Labs and Cumulus Networks have developed a joint integration so switches running Cumulus Linux, the operating system for open networking, can be managed just as easily as any other Puppet-managed device. The Puppet Supported Program is a certification program that enables Puppet Enterprise customers to extend the benefits of automation across their entire data center.

“The Puppet Supported Program enables more businesses to leverage the power of automation so they can move faster, with even more confidence,” said Nigel Kersten, CIO of Puppet Labs. “Through our work with Cumulus Networks and Dell, joint customers can now extend the benefits of Puppet Enterprise to more parts of their data centers, making SDN and its benefits a reality.”

Building on a previous partnership between Dell and Cumulus Networks, these new integrations provide customers a full stack solution of hardware, operating system and configuration management. While many companies have mature server automation practices and tooling in place, changes to the network are often performed manually, or with vendor-provided tools that are disconnected from other data center operations. As part of this partnership, Cumulus Networks and Puppet Labs have created a native Puppet Enterprise agent for Cumulus Linux and a Cumulus Linux Puppet module.

“Now data center IT teams can automate and manage both the network and the compute infrastructure exactly the same way,” said Reza Malekzadeh, VP Business, Cumulus Networks. “Puppet Enterprise native support for the Cumulus Linux OS equates to immediate OpEx savings as adoption of open networking expands to a broadening range of organizations.”

With the Cumulus Linux Puppet modules and native Puppet Enterprise agent, customers can use Puppet Enterprise to configure and manage everything from compute resources to switch VLANs and interfaces. For those wanting to get started out of the box, Dell and Cumulus Networks have partnered to offer a reference platform on the S6000-ON switch. This allows customers to use a unified change management processes across their servers and switches, enabling faster application deployment.

“As more organizations deploy OpenStack, we expect to see open networking solutions as a major part of those implementations,” said Adnan Bhutta, director of global strategy for Open Networking, Dell. “Dell customers can now build a complete, highly-automated and cost-effective solution with Dell Open Networking switches and Cumulus Linux OS, with Puppet Enterprise for automation across both servers and networking.”

The Puppet Supported Program demonstrates a joint commitment to equipping customers with the tools to manage their infrastructure at the highest levels of reliability and performance. Puppet Labs and its partners have committed to creating joint solutions that enable automation of both platforms and devices with Puppet Enterprise. The Puppet Supported Program’s rigorous certification process delivers customers the benefits of fully tested and supported automation of all leading hardware in today’s data centers.

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In live financial environments, capital markets software cannot pause for rebuilds. New capabilities are introduced as stacked technology layers to meet evolving demands while systems remain active, data keeps moving, and controls stay intact. AI is no exception, and its opportunities are significant: accelerated decision cycles, compressed manual workflows, and more effective operations across complex environments. The constraint isn't the models themselves, but the architectural environments they enter ...

Like most digital transformation shifts, organizations often prioritize productivity and leave security and observability to keep pace. This usually translates to both the mass implementation of new technology and fragmented monitoring and observability (M&O) tooling. In the era of AI and varied cloud architecture, a disparate observability function can be dangerous. IT teams will lack a complete picture of their IT environment, making it harder to diagnose issues while slowing down mean time to resolve (MTTR). In fact, according to recent data from the SolarWinds State of Monitoring & Observability Report, 77% of IT personnel said the lack of visibility across their on-prem and cloud architecture was an issue ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 23, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses the NetOps labor shortage ... 

Technology management is evolving, and in turn, so is the scope of FinOps. The FinOps Foundation recently updated their mission statement from "advancing the people who manage the value of cloud" to "advancing the people who manage the value of technology." This seemingly small change solidifies a larger evolution: FinOps practitioners have organically expanded to be focused on more than just cloud cost optimization. Today, FinOps teams are largely — and quickly — expanding their job descriptions, evolving into a critical function for managing the full value of technology ...

Enterprises are under pressure to scale AI quickly. Yet despite considerable investment, adoption continues to stall. One of the most overlooked reasons is vendor sprawl ... In reality, no organization deliberately sets out to create sprawling vendor ecosystems. More often, complexity accumulates over time through well-intentioned initiatives, such as enterprise-wide digital transformation efforts, point solutions, or decentralized sourcing strategies ...

Nearly every conversation about AI eventually circles back to compute. GPUs dominate the headlines while cloud platforms compete for workloads and model benchmarks drive investment decisions. But underneath that noise, a quieter infrastructure challenge is taking shape. The real bottleneck in enterprise AI is not processing power, it is the ability to store, manage and retrieve the relentless volumes of data that AI systems generate, consume and multiply ...

The 2026 Observability Survey from Grafana Labs paints a vivid picture of an industry maturing fast, where AI is welcomed with careful conditions, SaaS economics are reshaping spending decisions, complexity remains a defining challenge, and open standards continue to underpin it all ...

The observability industry has an evolving relationship with AI. We're not skeptics, but it's clear that trust in AI must be earned ... In Grafana Labs' annual Observability Survey, 92% said they see real value in AI surfacing anomalies before they cause downtime. Another 91% endorsed AI for forecasting and root cause analysis. So while the demand is there, customers need it to be trustworthy, as the survey also found that the practitioners most enthusiastic about AI are also the most insistent on explainability ...

In the modern enterprise, the conversation around AI has moved past skepticism toward a stage of active adoption. According to our 2026 State of IT Trends Report: The Human Side of Autonomous AI, nearly 90% of IT professionals view AI as a net positive, and this optimism is well-founded. We are seeing agentic AI move beyond simple automation to actively streamlining complex data insights and eliminating the manual toil that has long hindered innovation. However, as we integrate these autonomous agents into our ecosystems, the fundamental DNA of the IT role is evolving ...

AI workloads require an enormous amount of computing power ... What's also becoming abundantly clear is just how quickly AI's computing needs are leading to enterprise systems failure. According to Cockroach Labs' State of AI Infrastructure 2026 report, enterprise systems are much closer to failure than their organizations realize. The report ... suggests AI scale could cause widespread failures in as little as one year — making it a clear risk for business performance and reliability.