Open Network Featured Article

The OpenSwitch is a Linux Foundation (News - Alert) project established to bring together contributors that are focused on a full-featured networking operating system and control plane built on Linux. The goal of the project is to enable the transition to disaggregated networks in an ecosystem that encourages collaboration for top developers and companies so they can accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. By announcing they will increase their contribution to the OpenSwitch project, SnapRoute and Dell EMC (News - Alert) will push for the advancement of a complete open source network operating system (NOS).

As part of this collaboration, SnapRoute will make available its open source network stack and management services. The company's platform makes its solution available through a complete set of APIs for enabling a fully modular, hardware independent NOS. Based on its networking stack contribution, it is a modular protocol and software approach which lets organizations keep existing legacy architectures to continue working while only using what is necessary.

"SnapRoute is fully committed to driving the project and enabling a future of open networking," said Jason Forrester (News - Alert), founder and CEO, SnapRoute, Inc. "By taking a leadership role in delivering SnapRoute's open source networking stack to the project, we are taking a meaningful step toward realizing the vision of a fully open network operating system."

Dell (News - Alert) EMS on the other hand is bringing in its OS10 Open Edition. It provides networking switching applications with a fully open, fully disaggregated base subsystem incorporating hardware and platform abstraction layers.

In addition to SnapRoute and Dell EMC, the OpenSwitch project is also supported by leading global vendors to ensure NOS continue to increase in adoption by CSPs, enterprises, operators and others. They include, Barefoot Networks, Broadcom, Cavium, Inc., Edgecore Networks, Extreme Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, LinkedIn (News - Alert), Marvell, Mellanox Technologies, Nephos Inc., P4.org, Quattro Networks and Terralogic.

"Dell EMC is committed to leading within the open switching community to drive networking innovation and disrupt this historically proprietary industry," said Gavin Cato, senior vice president, Networking Development Engineering, Dell EMC.

Networks are a critical piece of infrastructure in the digital world we all live in, but in most cases they are operationally expensive, propriety based, complex and closed systems. With an open source network operating system, there will be more opportunities to accelerate innovations while reducing the cost of building and operating networks. OpenSwitch and Linux Foundation project along with SnapRoute, Dell EMC and other likeminded companies and organizations can change the current system if they continue to support open source projects.