Recently, Broadcom has opensourced API for their network switching asic as part of OpenNSL project. I tried to dig little deep into what it really means and this blog is a result of that.
What is really Opensourced?
Following picture from Broadcom OpenNSL project clearly illustrates this:
Following are some notes:
Earlier, I had written a blog on Opencompute networking project. There were few recent contributions from Facebook to Opencompute. In this blog, I wanted to capture major Opencompute Networking contributions from Facebook. I see these contributions as pretty significant in the context of White box switches.
The goal here was to develop modular switches where any hardware component of the switch can be replaced independently. Servers in the TOR use the Group Hug architecture where standard connector is used to connect the servers to the motherboard. This can allow a easier change of processor.
Continue reading Opencompute Networking – Facebook Contributions
This is a continuation of my previous blog on White box switches. White box switches allows for dis-aggregation of switch hardware from the software running on the switch. This approach allows the buyer to purchase hardware from 1 vendor and software from another vendor. Open compute project is an Open source project that was started around 4 years back by Facebook to open up the Data center hardware. Multiple other companies like Intel, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs have joined the community since. Around a year back, Networking charter was started in Open compute project to open up the Networking part of Data center hardware. Facebook, Intel, Broadcom, Cumulus, Arista are some of the vendors participating in this project. In this blog, I will cover the following:
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