Members and participating organisations include Barefoot Networks, Broadcom, Cavium, Inc., Extreme Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, LinkedIn, Marvell, Mellanox, Nephos Inc., P4.org, Quattro Networks, Inc. and SnapRoute.
Enterprise-grade switches power the Internet by moving data packets among cloud service providers, Internet service providers, corporate intranets and VPNs, datacenters, civil infrastructure and the Internet of Things. Traditional switches and network operating systems follow a proprietary and vertically integrated model, which does not allow vendors, operators or users the flexibility to innovate and tailor networks to meet specific business needs.
“OpenSwitch brings another important ingredient of the open networking stack to The Linux Foundation,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “We’re looking forward to working with this community to advance networking across the enterprise.”
OpenSwitch allows developers to build networks that prioritise business-critical workloads and functions by removing the burdens of interoperability issues and complex licensing structures that are inherent in proprietary systems. OpenSwitch is developed collaboratively, allowing users and network operators to achieve advanced performance, flexibility and security throughout network protocols.
OpenSwitch’s elegant design enables seamless interoperability with critical enterprise-scale open source technologies such as Ansible and OpenStack, and is able to integrate with other open source technologies including Broadcom Broadview, Grommit, LLDPD, P4, OpenVSwitch, and Quagga.
OpenSwitch also includes optional integration with SnapRoute’s open source L2/L3 stack. The SnapRoute stack is designed with the principles of a modern network stack and safe software design, is built for developer use and includes extensive operator control and instrumentation.
The OpenSwitch Project operates with an open governance model and accepts contributions from all interested companies and developers. Developer releases are currently available for prototyping, experimentation, and implementing on reference hardware. Documentation, source code and engagement instructions can be found at https://openswitch.net/
