Big Switch Networks, Facebook and NTT have jointly demonstrated Open Network Linux, integrating key components of the Open Compute Project.
The demonstration and code repository showed pluggable forwarding agents including:
- FBOSS (used by Facebook) built on Broadcom’s OpenNSL Library
- L3 Routing (used by NTT)
- OpenFlow (used by Big Switch Networks)
Pluggable forwarding agents are seen as a key innovation in Open Network Linux.
Open Network Linux was originally contributed to OCP by Big Switch Networks, a Gold level member, in March 2014. Hardware compatibility has grown to include 15+ open switch hardware platforms used in hyperscale data centers, including Facebook’s Wedge switch and Accton’s Edgecore AS5712-54X and AS6712-32X switches, and Dell’s 4048 and S6000 open networking switches.
“There is a rich set of switch software components now available as open source via the Open Compute Project’s networking track, but the integration was such a challenge that they were really out of reach for most organizations. With Open Network Linux, this is no longer the case,” said Rob Sherwood, Big Switch CTO and co-creator of Open Network Linux. “At the same time, I’m proud that this architecture strikes the right balance of shared code and pluggable agents. We are unifying disparate efforts in the hyperscale networking development community without locking anyone into any specific architecture.”
“We’re glad to see Big Switch Networks providing Open Network Linux on top of Wedge, as well as making it easier for companies to plug in OCP and open source packages like FBOSS,” said Omar Baldonado, Manager of Networking at Facebook. “This development will encourage more organizations to try out the benefits of open source networking and disaggregated networking models.”
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