Microsoft opens up: Developing Linux-based operating system

Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft has become more open than ever. The company has announced a Linux-based operating system – Azure Cloud Switch (ACS).

“ACS is our foray into building our own software for running network devices like switches. It is a cross-platform modular operating system for data centre networking built on Linux,” Kamala Subramaniam, Principal Architect, Azure Networking said in a blog post .

“The system allows us to debug, fix, and test software bugs much faster. It also allows us the flexibility to scale down the software and develop features that are required for our datacentre and our networking needs.”

ACS also allows us to share the same software stack across hardware from multiple switch vendors. This is done via the Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) specification, the first open-standard C API for programming network switching ASICs, of the Open Compute Project (OCP).

ACS believes in the power of Open Networking. The system allows to use and extend Open Source, Microsoft, and Third Party applications.

“We’re talking about ACS publicly as we believe this approach of disaggregating the switch software from the switch hardware will continue to be a growing trend in the networking industry and we would like to contribute our insights and experiences of this journey starting here,” Subramaniam added.