TUTORIAL: WHITE BOX/BARE METAL SWITCHES Rob Sherwood CTO, Big Switch Networks Open Network User s Group: May, 2014
OUTLINE Mo5va5on Ecosystem and Terminology Support and Purchasing Available Hardware Available SoJware Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) Commercial Open Source Hand over to Sean Varley: NFV 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 2
WHO AM I: ROB SHERWOOD CTO, architect at Big Switch Networks ONF: former chair of ArchWG and vice- chair of TesVngWG Working in OpenFlow/SDN since 2008 Campus Network admin of yore 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 3
MOTIVATION
EVOLUTION OF NETWORK PROVISIONING: 1996-2013 1996 2013 Terminal Protocol: Telnet Terminal Protocol: SSH 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 5
BUT HARDWARE VERTICALLY INTEGRATED HOLDS US BACK VerVcally Integrated Systems Have Changed Li^le Over the Past 15 Years Feature 1 Feature 2 Provisioning and Management StaVc, manual configuravon Low feature velocity Proprietary Network OS Proprietary System Proprietary Silicon Opera5ng Systems Few API s, only CLI (closed OS) Not externally programmable Hardware Systems Lock- in to a parvcular vendor System Silicon Slow innovavon cycles Expensive, no economies of scale 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 6
THREE REASONS TO BUY BARE METAL 1 Choice: avoid vervcal lock- in 2 Lower OpEx: be^er fit your needs 3 Lower CapEx: horizontal compevvon 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 7
ISN T NETWORKING ALREADY OPEN? Faster Throughput = More commercial value = More Proprietary All Hardware Specs Public X86 Servers ß Open Binary SDK for Packet Forwarding Closed OS, Open Control Plane APIs NPU, FPGA, SoC DC 1U ToRs, Spines Closed OS, Open APIs for Policy, Stats MulV- chassis Routers 10 Gb/s 100 Gb/s 1 Tb/s 10 Tb/s Aggregate Throughput à 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 8
ISN T NETWORKING ALREADY OPEN? Faster Throughput = More commercial value = More Proprietary All Hardware Specs Public X86 Servers ß Open Binary SDK for Packet Forwarding Closed OS, Open Control Plane APIs NPU, FPGA, SoC DC 1U ToRs, Spines DC 1U ToRs, Spines This talk Closed OS, Open APIs for Policy, Stats MulV- chassis Routers 10 Gb/s 100 Gb/s 1 Tb/s 10 Tb/s Aggregate Throughput à 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 9
ECOSYSTEM AND TERMINOLOGY
WHAT S INSIDE A SWITCH? ApplicaVon Network OS Hardware Driver Box Silicon 2 0 1 4 B I G S W I T C H N E T W O R K S, I N C. W W W. B I G S W I T C H. C O M 11
COMPONENT ECOSYSTEM AND BARE METAL ApplicaVon Network OS Driver Single Vendor Closed Product Single Vendor Closed Product TradiVonal Network Stack/OS Vendor Box ODM Box ODM Box Silicon ODM Chip ODM Chip TradiVonal Networking (past) TradiVonal Networking (today) Bare Metal Vision 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 12
SERVER ECOSYSTEM IS MATURE, HORIZONTAL Open Architecture Choice of Vendors InnovaVon Velocity Low TCO Apache MySQL Nagios Custom Web App Hadoop etc. Applica5ons 3 rd party or Custom Linux Windows VMware KVM Xen Opera5ng System Open or closed source Virtualized or bare metal Many support models Dell HP Super Micro Hardware Systems Fierce compevvon Branded or white box Bare Metal Server Intel AMD System Silicon CompeVVon and rapid innovavon 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 13
BARE METAL MEANS BUYING JUST THE HARDWARE No vervcal integravon just like how we buy our servers SDN Apps TradiVonal OpenFlow OSPF BGP STP IGMP Applica5on Re- create exisvng distributed protocols New SDN- based applicavons BSN Switch Light Pica8 Cumulus Network Opera5ng System Open or closed source New Ecosystem Quanta Accton CelesVca Delta Alpha ODM and Brand Name Companies Bare Metal Switch Broadcom Mellanox Marvell Centec Intel Merchant Silicon Growing number of startups! 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 14
BARE METAL IS MORE THAN WHITE BOX Both white box and brand name vendors can support bare metal switches Brand Name Dell HP White Box No Name SuperMicro Will brand name server vendors become brand name bare- metal switch vendors? Brand Name? White Box Quanta Accton IBM Quanta ( ) Delta Networks ( ) 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 15
Dell Open Networking Model Offers open, innovative and best of breed solutions for the data center Standard orchestration and automation tools Optional 3 rd Party SDN / NVO controller Networking for Unified mgmt of servers & switches for Linux savvy customers Big Switch Big Tap & Cumulus OS are complementary & unique solutions For Monitoring fabrics capture growing market driven by Cyber attacks & application performance Dell s rich, full-featured OS architected for performance, resiliency and portability across switch platforms Any OS Open Networking switch S4810-ON 1/10/40 GbE switch S6000-ON 10/40 GbE switch Merchant silicon Dell Networking
SAME BOXES, DIFFERENT LABELS ODMs directly supply tradi5onal networking vendors Probably boxes you ve already deployed Each ODM created new public face/commercial label To create appearance of not compevng directly ODM Manufacturer New Vendor Company 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 17
SUPPORT AND PURCHASING
PURCHASING AND SUPPORT: SERVERS Server Support Ecosystem Has Evolved to Fit Business Needs By a show of hands Where do you buy your server hardware: Direct from hardware vendor? Partners? VAR? Where do you buy your server OS and applica5ons? Direct from soqware vendor(s)? Partners? VAR? Who do you call if there is a problem? or hardware supplier? Or a VAR? 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 19
PURCHASING AND SUPPORT Just like a servers: many choices Purchase Hardware Purchase First Support Call Hardware RMA Single Throat Disaggregated Channel VAR 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 20
PURCHASING AND SUPPORT Just like a servers: many choices Single Throat Disaggregated Channel VAR Purchase Hardware Purchase First Support Call Hardware RMA Company Co. (pass through) Company Co. (pass through) 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 21
PURCHASING AND SUPPORT Just like a servers: many choices Single Throat Disaggregated Channel VAR Purchase Hardware Purchase First Support Call Hardware RMA Company Co. (pass through) Company Co. (pass through) Company 3 rd Party: any from HCL Company 3 rd Party 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 22
PURCHASING AND SUPPORT Just like a servers: many choices Single Throat Disaggregated Channel VAR Purchase Company Company Channel Partner Hardware Purchase Co. (pass through) 3 rd Party: any from HCL Channel Partner First Support Call Company Company Company Hardware RMA Co. (pass through) 3 rd Party Co. (pass through) 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 23
PURCHASING AND SUPPORT Just like a servers: many choices Single Throat Disaggregated Channel VAR Purchase Company Company Channel Partner VAR Hardware Purchase Co. (pass through) 3 rd Party: any from HCL Channel Partner VAR First Support Call Company Company Company VAR Hardware RMA Co. (pass through) 3 rd Party Co. (pass through) VAR 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 24
SUPPORT PROGNOSTICATIONS Which support process will dominate? Rapidly evolving: our customers use all of these Depends on geographic region: Japan à VAR, EMEA à partner, US à direct Claim: Single throat to choke will transivon to VAR then direct sales. SoJware Licenses: subscrip8on versus perpetual plus support Depends on company size, internal accounvng Both may be the right long term answer Larger quesvon than networking soqware 2 0 1 3 B I G S W I T C H N E T W O R K S, I N C. W W W. B I G S W I T C H. C O M 25
AVAILABLE HARDWARE
SIMPLIFIED HARDWARE PURCHASING Streamlined Procurement Transparent Pricing 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 27
SURPRISINGLY LOW CAPEX 32x40G for ~$10K == $312/40G port ~$6k 4x40G@$312 == $99/10G port 2013 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 28
SWITCH SOFTWARE
OUTLINE Mo5va5on Ecosystem and Terminology Support and Purchasing Available SoJware Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) Open Source Commercial Hand over to Sean Varley: NFV 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 30
OPEN NETWORK INSTALL ENVIRONMENT (ONIE) Open source project to install/uninstall network OS h^p://github.com/onie/onie or h^p://onie.github.io/onie/ Think of it like a hybrid PC BIOS and Grub/LILO/Sysimage Co- opera5ve project: OCP, Cumulus, Big Switch, Others In pracvce: Curt Brune from Cumulus Networks does almost all of the work Allows a network admin to install/uninstall a network OS In pracvce, it is itself a ~4MB mini- Linux installavon 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 31
COMMERCIAL BARE METAL SWITCH SOFTWARE This is not a product pitch talk talk to me aqerwards. Tradi5onal Control Plane Cumulus Linux Pica8 s PicOS SDN Control Plane Big Switch Networks s Switch Light OS 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 32
OPEN SOURCE: OPEN NETWORK LINUX A Linux distribuvon for bare metal switches Open- sourced commercial code, build scripts, drivers from Switch Light Part of Open Compute Project (OCP) Project goals: Improve percepvon/de- risk bare metal Crowd source larger Switch Light HCL Released mid- January: Ini5al results Strong community response from ODMs, OCP Accton self- supporvng three new boxes, more ODMs interested Other vendors invesvgavng ONL for their own purposes Info: h^p://opennetlinux.org under construcvon 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 33
ONL SUPPORTED HARDWARE X86 versus PPC Discussion ONL Support is Pre- cursor to Switch Light Support Working on OCP box from Interface Masters with x86 support 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 34
SWITCH LIGHT ARCHITECTURE Legend Open Network Linux BSN Open BSN Closed 3 rd Party Closed Source ZTN Loader SSH LibC on Debian Wheezy Base DistribuVon ONL Linux Kernel Switch Light OS Fan Control NTP Syslog SNMP I2C Big Network Controllers GPIO Device Trees ASIC SDK ASIC 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 35 CLI Indigo Indigo/ASIC Driver OpenFlow Agent Loxi Switch Light is our Indigo OpenFlow Agent running on Open Network Linux on x86 or ASIC- based hardware.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSIONS Tradi5onal network vendors have outsourced much of their hardware: box and ASICs Buy/support/run your network like your servers Growing ecosystem Silicon: Broadcom, Intel, Marvel, Centec, etc. Hardware: Dell, Accton, Quanta, Agema, etc. : Big Switch Networks, Cumulus, Pica8 1 Choice 2 Lower OpEx 3 Lower CapEx 2014 BIG SWITCH NETWORKS, INC. WWW.BIGSWITCH.COM 37