HP is banding together with three other hardware companies and a hypervisor vendor to launch the OpenSwitch Community, which will seek community-like participation in the development of a Linux-based OpenSwitch NOS. The other participants are Intel, Broadcom, Accton and VMware.
Though the community lacks a pure operating system vendor, HP says it has plenty of OS and NOS expertise to lend OpenSwitch credibility in that regard. VMware also provides software-based network virtualization and control experience through its NSX product line and developers.
+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: HP switches fortify campus SDNs+
The effort is seen as an opportunity for HP to develop own a viable data center NOS to better compete in that market against the likes of Cisco and Arista. HP very recently announced arrangements with Cumulus Networks and Pica8 to resell or support their respective data center NOSes, but the market is important enough for HP to attempt to develop and own something akin to Arista’s EOS, a modular and extensible switch operating system that is key to the company’s data center networking success.
HP evaluated community-developed open source offerings already available before deciding to develop a new one.
“We didn’t find one that fit the modern architecture and subscription model,” says Mark Carroll, HP Networking CTO. “There wasn’t anything out there” that satisfied HP’s desire for a programmable and scalable OS built on the SysDB model.
Carroll noted Arista’s EOS as the closest OS in the market meeting these requirements but he said OpenSwitch NOS will allow developer access to the source code, rather than just through APIs as most vendor OSes offer.
On the impact of OpenSwitch NOS on HP’s arrangements with Cumulus and Pica8, Carroll said the partnerships will continue even though OpenSwitch NOS will also be an option for HP switch customers.
“We plan to continue the variety of the (NOS) offering” on HP’s new Altoline series of bare metal/white box switches.
Carroll said Cumulus Linux and Pica8’s PicOS address features sets for particular vertical markets and applications, but that OpenSwitch NOS will be integrated across HP’s switch portfolio and facilitate integration with OpenStack clouds.
Pica8 agrees.
“We know what we do is not going to fit every organization,” says Steve Garrison, vice president of marketing. “The goal is to offer customer choice. The market will decide based on the organization and the tool. We’re all pieces on the chess board.”
HP competitor Juniper Networks also offers a version of its Junos operating system to run on its bare metal/white box switch. Dell offers Cumulus and Big Switch OSes on its switches as well.
HP says traditional networking is based on a closed, proprietary and vertically integrated model that does not allow customers or developers to innovate and tailor networks to meet business needs because there is no community-based access to NOS source code for modification. An open source NOS, the company says, allows developers to engineer networks to prioritize business critical workloads and functions, ease interoperability, and relieve customers of proprietary software licensing structures.
The OpenSwitch NOS will include:
The OpenSwitch Community is operating today. The first developer release of the new OpenSwitch NOS will be available before the first half of 2016, with deployments expected in the second half.
OpenSwitch NOS code will be available on GitHub or through vendors like HP offering certified distributions.